


Becoming Human

by Eristastic



Category: Neon Genesis Evangelion
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Magic, Dolls, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Size Difference
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-03
Updated: 2015-07-30
Packaged: 2018-04-02 17:10:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 31,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4067929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eristastic/pseuds/Eristastic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Of magic and witches and AI gone wrong: a simple tale of symbiosis wherein the boy helps the doll become human and the doll helps the boy become himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so bad at beginnings.
> 
> Come to think of it, summaries are not my forte either.

The house was smothering in its emptiness, Shinji thought.

It had been that way all his fifteen years and was still going strong – with arching doorways you could fit carriages through; varnished floors and shining marble sending echoes through the rooms; endless corridors lined with faded paintings; and at the heart of it all, a single, lonely boy. He didn’t consider himself lonely, of course. To him, days spent watching empty rooms pensively with your mind miles away was just how things were done. So he studied, played his cello, followed his father’s instructions that were left in starched, sealed letters on silver platters, and only left the house if absolutely demanded of him.

For Shinji, the real problem was that the house _wasn’t_ empty, not exactly. An empty house is easily dealt with. A house filled to every corner and crevice by a dead woman’s ghost is not. Yui’s ghost stifled him with her sad, understanding smile in cracking paintings and fuzzy photos, her unforgivably eternal presence poisoning Gendo’s every fleeting glance at his son with disgust. Everywhere he went, she’d be waiting for him. She was locked into the words of anyone who met him: at a loss for what to say to such a timid boy with an unflinchingly dark gaze, they always returned to ‘ _I’ve long admired your mother, you know. Such a great sorceress – the best of our time. Such a pity she was taken from us so young_.’

It’s true: it was a pity. Shinji just wished that he could feel that truth rather than simply think it. It was difficult to love a woman you’d never known, especially one whose very ghost overshadowed you in everyone’s eyes. He tried.

 

On his fifteenth birthday, Fuyutsuki came to see him. His father’s second in command rarely visited (although not as rarely as Gendo himself), only enough to make sure Shinji had some regular human contact throughout the week other than snatched glimpses of people in suits on the staircases leading to his father’s rooms, or the echoed voices he couldn’t quite make out words from.

Despite Fuyutsuki’s attempts, there was never much of a dialogue. Shinji answered as he was required, but he took little joy in conforming to the image of respect he upheld in the old man’s presence. There was never any point to it, he thought: why bother getting along more than necessary with someone he couldn’t even be himself with? If the relationship had to be strained by social queues and rules, then better it not be forced further at all.

So Fuyutsuki left, as leisurely as he’d arrived, leaving a key.

“The commander wishes you to have this, Ikari. It opens the chest in the storeroom of Yui’s belongings.” The man hesitated, looking at Shinji with sadness and pity. “I...I believe it is also an expression of his congratulations. I would like to extend mine, as well.”

Shinji nodded, tasting bile in his throat.

Fuyutsuki left the suite in agonisingly slow paces, closing the door behind him.

The key lay on the table intrusively, reflected in its polished surface, and Shinji stared at it as his clenched fists trembled at his sides.

Within moments he ripped his gaze away and stood up suddenly, pushing his chair back violently enough for it to catch on the edge of a carpet and fall over with a clatter that disturbed the quiet of clocks ticking. He stalked out of the room without looking back.

There was no point to that, either, he thought, settling onto an embroidered armchair in his room, grasping at the stiff stitching pulled taught by rock-hard stuffing. He didn’t want to go and look at his mother’s rooms again. He didn’t want to follow his father’s orders like a good little boy and be given nothing but silence and disdain in return. Biting his lip, he tried to force his face into a scowl and fight the oncoming tears.

It just didn’t make _sense_ : why would his father have bothered giving him that stupid key if he didn’t at least remember it was Shinji’s birthday? And if he remembered, couldn’t he come and greet him, at least? Leave a note, maybe? Even a single word would be fine, but Fuyutsuki hadn’t brought any impersonally printed letter with the key.

Shinji curled up into the chair, fitting neatly in the imprint he’d built there over the years.

 

Hours passed, and noon found him padding back into the drawing room of his suite, stopping in the doorway. The table – polished oak with a tasteful flower arrangement sitting lonely in the middle of its wooden sea – took up the best part of the room, with only chairs around it, a fireplace, and a few stray pictures to balance it. And there, not even having had the decency to make itself scarce, lay the key at Shinji’s end.

His gaze hovered over it again, though weary this time instead of angry, and after a few hesitant footsteps, he bent to pick it up. Its weight was inoffensive in his palm and, with a sigh, he let curiosity get the better of him and began the familiar journey to the abandoned part of the house.

The storage room that kept the best part of Yui’s belongings was unlocked: her magical equipment and spell books had never been on show while she was alive, and after her death nobody had been able to find her workshops, so it was deemed unnecessary to lock up mundane furniture and clothes. Everything was covered in dust sheets, though, and it took Shinji a long time of rummaging through them to find a chest whose lock matched the key. In the end, he came across it under a billiards table: a decidedly plain-looking box inlaid with iron, just large enough to give him significant trouble in taking it back down to his own rooms. He persevered, however (it wasn’t as if there was anyone around who would help him – all servants answered strictly and exclusively to his father), so after a stop-start journey down carpeted flights of stairs, eventually it stood in the corner of his bedroom, leaving him sticky, dusty, and more than a little put out when he finally did open it.

The contents were entirely unremarkable, for the most part. He got on his knees in front of the damn thing and began to pull out jewellery cases, glass figures wrapped in brown paper, books that all seemed to be in languages he didn’t speak…he was about ready to scream at the insignificance of it all compared to what he’d been expecting, _hoping_ for, until he reached the largest parcel at the bottom of the trunk. Picking it up, he first imagined he’d broken whatever was inside because it bent unlike any of the ornaments before it, but when he unwrapped it carefully to avoid broken glass, it instead revealed a doll about the size of his hand and forearm put together.

It was an odd one, that much was certain. Unlike the china and porcelain dolls he’d seen from time to time, its skin was matte rather than artificially smooth, and though still deathly pale there was a rosiness to its cheeks and joints that made it even more ghostlike, if anything. More like someone dying than a doll that was never meant to look completely human. It wore miniature clothes in a style similar to Shinji’s own, but had bleached-white hair, as fluffy as rabbit’s fur, and Shinji wondered vaguely if that was what it was made of. Aside from that, though its features were as idealised as dolls’ faces so often are, it looked every inch a real person, so much so that Shinji wasn’t sure if he wanted to see what its eyes were like when they were open or not.

But when all was said and done, it was a doll. An exquisitely made one, but nevertheless it was doll in a chest full of similarly useless objects Shinji didn’t want or need, and he’d gotten his hopes up for nothing.

The sour taste of disappointment was nothing new to him when it came to his father, but that didn’t make it cut through his mouth any softer. With stiff limbs knees rubbed red from the carpet, he got to his feet and tried to persuade himself that seeing as he had seen it coming, it shouldn’t matter that his father’s one acknowledgement of his birthday meant nothing.

 

Late in the afternoon, the phone rang, trilling into the silence of Shinji’s rooms. He almost leapt on it, clutching the receiver to his ear like a child holding a small shell in the hopes of hearing a whole ocean. Misato’s voice came spilling out of it, wishing him a happy birthday and asking him how he’d been, but always cutting him off with ‘make sure you eat properly’ or ‘try and get out sometimes’ before he could quite speak. Shinji smiled at her warmth. It didn’t go unnoticed by him how she carefully avoided mentioning his father.

“I’m fine, Miss Misato,” he finally got in, twirling the phone wire around a finger. “Really. You don’t have to worry so much.”

“You always say that and then I come visit you and you look half dead. Of _course_ I’m going to worry about you! Oh, and I should mention: the job I’m working on isn’t going to be finished for a while so I can’t really spare the time to come see you in person, but I’ll keep calling to check up on you, have no fear.”

“I’m glad.” It was easier, after all. Talking over the phone for a few precious minutes of energy and human contact was easier than having to meet her in person. Misato was so loud and energetic and _powerful_ in everything that she did that Shinji thought he might be swallowed up by her, sometimes.

“And could you do me a favour and go and see Asuka soon? That girl worries me too: apparently she’s got a whole bunch of powerful sorcerers on their toes lately because she keeps showing them up. I think she’s overcompensating too hard again.”

Shinji nodded, humming something that hopefully sounded like a cheery agreement.

“Good. Now, I hate to run out on you so early, but I’m already this close to being late for my next meeting – I’ll talk to you soon, got it?”

“Yeah. Thanks, Miss Misato. Bye.”

“Bye-bye!” The phone clicked as she hung up, and Shinji gently put the phone back on the holder.  Calm fell onto his shoulders again, although still warmed by the lingering buzz he always felt after spending any amount of time talking to other people.

He looked at the phone a minute longer, as if it would suddenly start ringing again, then sighed and walked back to his music room.

 

He only returned to his bedroom at night, and by then he could only stare weakly at the packages and trunk still lying on the floor. It wasn’t as if he _needed_ to clean them up, anyway. It would take ages to pack everything back into the trunk in the right way to not smash anything, so, with a rueful look at the mess, he changed and fell into bed, letting the mattress and duvet engulf him against the cold.

As the creaks of the old beams in his four-poster subsided, another noise became apparent. Shinji went still, listening to a series of rustles coming from the foot of his bed. He stayed there, in horrified silence, ideas whirling through his mind. It was so close – shouldn’t he have seen it if something had been there? It sounded too small to be a person, so a rat, maybe? He clenched his feet up at the thought of having passed by a rat without noticing it.

And then the rustles stopped, giving way to squeaks like bone rubbing together, moving steadily towards him. It really felt as if his heart had stopped, or at least he wished it would because its pounding was unbearably loud in a room populated only by what breaths he couldn’t muffle and that tormenting squeaking.

It stopped.

Nothing happened for a long time, and soon the space under the duvet that Shinji had buried into became hot and humid enough to force him to slowly, slowly slide his head out a little, inch by inch, reaching for the switch on the lamp by his bed. He sucked in a breath and turned the light on.

The doll stared back at him with eyes like poppies in full bloom. Shinji let out a low whine – all he could manage – that turned into a frantic wail as the doll moved hesitantly forwards and he scrambled back from it. The doll immediately retracted its hand and stopped moving, still fixing Shinji with a worried expression, twisting its delicate face as if it were actually made of flesh.

Neither moved until, just as Shinji was considering whether he could run from it or not, the doll spoke.

“You’re…not Yui…are you?”


	2. Chapter 2

Shinji stared, breath caught in his throat.

The doll looked at him imploringly, reaching out once again with an arm that creaked at the elbow.

“It’s…it’s just that I felt her, so I woke up. But she’s not here.” It looked ready to cry. Shinji could relate. “I felt her blood, but she’s not here…”

“You felt her _blood_?” Shinji hissed incredulously. “More importantly, why do you know my mother’s name? What are you?”

The doll shrunk back from the questions thrown at it, but answered meekly all the same. “Yui made me with blood, so I can feel her. If you’re her son, I…I suppose that’s what I felt. That’s why I woke up. So it wasn’t her...” it perked up all of a sudden, red eyes shimmering in the lamplight. “But if you’re her son, do you know where she is? I want to see her!”

“She’s dead.” Shinji said it in a tight voice, sick of the words before they’d even come out of his mouth.

The doll stared for a second before recognition clouded its expression. “Dead…I didn’t want to believe it, but…All those screams, I…I suppose it’s not a surprise.”

Shinji narrowed his eyes. “Screams? What do you mean?” He was growing frantic now, “What do you know about my mother’s death? No one knows how she died! She just turned up in her rooms…”

“I don’t know much!” the doll said, visibly distressed. “I was locked away even then: I just remember screaming and then being pulled away, and then I fell asleep, that’s all!”

“Oh.” Shinji sank back onto the pillows and tried to bite back his disappointment. He might finally have won his father’s favour by finding out how his mother had died, but it seemed he truly was destined to be hated his whole life.

The doll looked unsure of itself, watching Shinji unblinkingly.

Shinji looked away, uncomfortable, and tried to distract himself from the never-failing stare. “So you’re a doll created by my mother.”

“Yes…an experiment, to see if she could create life, she said.”

Shinji wanted to laugh: no sorcerer existing had even come close to creating anything more than a mindless shell of a humanoid, and his mother had gone and woven a spell to make a free-thinking consciousness on her own. Typical. “Did she give you a name?”

“She called me Kaworu.”

“Does that mean anything?”

“I don’t know.” Kaworu looked nervous, as if he was waiting for permission. “What’s your name?” he eventually managed.

“Shinji.” He didn’t know what to make of the situation anymore. It was quite obvious that Kaworu would create more than just a stir in the magical community with his very existence alone, and while that usually wouldn’t have mattered to Shinji, he found he couldn’t tear his eyes from the doll’s, still staring at him wide-eyed and unsure of himself. And it was easy, Shinji realised. Easy talking to this non-human, far easier than with any of the people he knew. And if that were the case, even considering the idea of giving him up felt wrong, as if he’d be giving up the last gift his mother had left him (now that _really_ made him want to laugh).

Kaworu had been fidgeting, rubbing his hands together and making that awful squeaking sound again, until he inhaled deeply (although Shinji wasn’t even sure he needed oxygen) and broke the silence. “If you’re Yui’s son, do you know how to use magic? Can I ask you a favour? It’s just that’d I’d really like to be finished, please. It won’t take long, I promise! Yui did most of the work, but I’m not complete, and I’d really rather like to be…” he trailed off.

Shinji looked down at him, disgust at his own inadequacy sinking to the bottom of his stomach. “Oh…I…I’m sorry, but I don’t know magic at all. Father forbade me from ever using it.”

Kaworu visibly wilted and it dawned on Shinji that he was one of the most expressive people he’d ever talked with, human or not, and that those blood-red eyes could sway his emotions with only a glance. Every expression seemed larger than life, more real than Shinji could imagine, as if this doll fabricated from magic could feel more deeply than Shinji himself. It was hardly inconceivable, he reflected bitterly.

 “But…if it’s your father, shouldn’t he understand? Nobody married to Yui could hate magic. And if you’re Yui’s son, you must have great powers, no matter what other blood you’ve got in you!”

“Regardless, I’ve never even _touched_ a spell book before.”

“What about Yui’s? You must have gone through her old belongings.”

“We never found them.”

“Oh no…” Kaworu really did look like he was on the verge of tears, but he closed his eyes, breathed deeply, and re-opened them into a sad but resigned smile that shook Shinji to the core in how much it resembled his mother’s.

“No matter, then,” the doll said. “But are you sure you couldn’t try and start learning magic? I don’t mean to put you to any trouble, you know, but it would benefit you too, I’m sure!”

“My father would just punish me and hate me even more, so I don’t see what I have to gain.” The words came out a little colder than Shinji intended, and Kaworu looked taken aback, but he couldn’t stop himself. The nerve was struck and sourness filled his mind, more than could be healed by some innocent words.

“I…I’m sure he doesn’t hate you…”

“No? He never speaks to me, barely looks at me even when I go so far as to seek him out, sends letters just to avoid me, and even though it’s my birthday he just gave me the key to your chest without so much as a note. I don’t even think he remembered.”

Kaworu watched him wordlessly.

“You know,” Shinji went on, curling his legs up to his chest, already feeling an uncomfortable lump growing in his throat, “I don’t think he ever cared at all. I don’t care either, or I don’t want to care, I don’t want to even know him, but…then I see him again and all I want is for him to acknowledge me.” He bit his lip, worrying the already chapped skin to stop himself from saying anything more. A doll, even an intelligent one, couldn’t possibly understand, and no good would come from venting to something like that.

“Don’t you think he might acknowledge you if you did something for yourself, for once?” And yet, those words caught Shinji’s attention. Kaworu spoke with calm conviction. “And even if he doesn’t, at least then you’d have that left over. You have great magical ability – you have to have it – so I think it would be a waste if you didn’t nurture it and study magic. And…and don’t you think it’s possible that he wanted you to do this? Maybe he knew about me. Maybe he knew what was in the chest, so that’s why he gave you the key. So maybe he wants you to do this.”

Shinji felt his impending tears fade away. “What proof do you have of that?”

“None at all.”

But it was tempting. After a life of fear and inferiority, the idea that he might actually be good at something, even destined for something, was enough to interest him. Either way, his father never came to check on him. Nobody did. Nobody would have to know.

“Okay.”

“You’ll do it? You’ll try and finish me?”

Shinji nodded hesitantly, still surprised he’d agreed so readily. “But what needs finishing? You seem to work just fine.”

Kaworu looked embarrassed at the question. “There are small things here and there that need completing, spells that need wrapping up, that sort of thing, but the main issue is that I keep falling asleep, and I find it difficult to wake up. You might also say that I just…can’t wake up. If I hadn’t felt your blood near me, I wouldn’t have.”

“That…does sound like a problem.”

Kaworu nodded vigorously and Shinji felt guilt creeping into the hope they shared.

“Look…I don’t know the first thing about magic, so I’m going to have to start from scratch, and I can’t promise you I’ll be any good at it at all.”

“You will be! And even if you’re not, as long as I’m near you I can wake up, I think. So I’m happy with you, even if I’m not fixed.” He smiled widely, a smile so contagious Shinji mirrored it unthinkingly.

“Are…are you sure?”

“Of course! I think I like being with you, Shinji.”

That settled that, then. Shinji felt something tighten in his chest as it became hard for him to breathe all of a sudden, but he managed to say, “Could I…this sounds odd, but could I take a look at you?”

Kaworu cocked his head at the question but nodded pleasantly.

Something changed when Shinji leant over the bed to pick him up. It hadn’t been there that afternoon, but the second his fingers had a grasp on Kaworu’s artificial skin, he could feel it. It was all there, everything his mother had worked so hard to make. Just under the skin – and even buzzing in it, Shinji realised – he could feel the strands of magic criss-crossing in a labyrinthine pattern that somehow made sense to him. It was logical, he could see that: to put this spell _here_ and that spell _there_ and to wind them around _this_ to tie alongside _that_ , all to create one tiny thread of the unbelievably, marvellously complex tapestry that was Kaworu. He finally understood why Asuka always called it ‘spell-weaving’, not casting or chanting as he had always assumed it must be when he had watched her move her hands and fingers, glaring at them intently and finishing with a textbook-perfect spell. It was weaving, sewing, stitching the pieces together to create something better than they could ever be on their own. And he understood it, completely.

The cool touch of Kaworu’s hand on his own brought him back to reality. “Are you alright, Shinji?”

“I…can see it. The magic. I’ve never felt, never seen anything like that before. But it makes sense. Kaworu, it makes sense!” He smiled, energy bubbling through him because everything felt _right_. “It’s like…it’s like I don’t know the words, but I understand the language, you know? I can see how everything fits together, so I just have to learn the pieces, how to manipulate them. It’s incredible…you’re incredible, Kaworu!”

Kaworu smiled wide, softness and kindness emanating from him. “I’m so pleased for you!”

“And for you too, Kaworu! I can do it: I’m sure I’ll be able to finish you. I can feel my mother’s work, all the love she put into you, and I…” he grew quiet. “I feel like I’m meeting her for the first time. Through you.”

Impossibly, Kaworu’s smile grew gentler, and he put a hand on Shinji’s arm. It felt bony, yet soft in the right places, not smooth and porcelain at all. Human.

“I’m glad, Shinji.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For reference, the magic used in this story is sort of a mix between the stuff you'd find in a Diana Wynne Jones story and the Charter magic from Garth Nix. I'm not sure how helpful that is, but I'll do my best to describe it properly!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing Asuka is difficult...I didn't realise...

Morning came like release from a fever dream. Shinji’s eyes snapped open, and, skittishly, he turned a fraction to the side, holding his breath without meaning to. Kaworu lay asleep, still and lifeless.

Tentatively, Shinji reached out a hand to brush against the doll’s skin but he didn’t even have to make contact: just before he could, Kaworu’s eyelids fluttered into life. He looked over blearily at the boy who was still frozen in position, mouth widening into a smile so easy Shinji envied him it. “Good morning.”

“G-good morning. You…you fell asleep really quickly last night.”

Kaworu cringed. “I’m sorry: I didn’t scare you, did I?” His voice was full of worry and far too soft to come from an artificial throat, Shinji thought. “It just happens like that, sometimes.” He cringed apologetically and Shinji wanted to reassure him, tell him there was no reason in the world to apologise, but all he could manage was a nod. ‘Easier to speak to’ apparently didn’t mean ‘easy’, not where Shinji was concerned.

Sometime later, while he and Kaworu were packing up the trunk properly (Kaworu had insisted), he managed to blurt out, “I’m going to go and visit a witch I know today. To ask her for help in starting out. Will…will you come?”

Kaworu beamed even while trembling alarmingly under the weight of a particularly large glass figure before Shinji relieved him of it. “I’d be delighted to. Do you think it would be alright for her to know about me?”

“I think…I think so. Asuka’s trustworthy. She’s really amazing, you know,” he was on more familiar territory here: Asuka reminded him of her qualities every time he saw her, anyway. He knew the script. “She’s the best witch in the country despite being only my age. Miss Misato – she’s my…mentor, sort of – says that she can beat any seasoned sorcerer at their own game without even trying.”

“That sounds incredible! She must be an outstanding girl. But, if you don’t mind me asking, how do you know her? Does your father approve of her?”

“Ah…He…he,” Shinji waited for Kaworu to put the last package inside before closing the trunk lid firmly and locking it. “He doesn’t know. I think. I mean, he knows a lot of things and pretends he doesn’t, so I suppose it wouldn’t surprise me if he knew this too, but I don’t _think_ he knows.” It took him all the way to his bedroom door before he realised he hadn’t answered Kaworu’s question. “As for Asuka,” he said hurriedly, “she visits Miss Misato too, and Miss Misato once made us work together. She said it would be a learning experience for both of us.” He smiled at the memory: she hadn’t been wrong. “Miss Misato has made sure we keep in touch. I think she worries about us. Well, I know she does, to be honest.”

“Why would that be?”

“Neither of us really have any other friends. If it weren’t for each other, I…I suppose we wouldn’t know anyone else our own age.”

“It’s nice to have friends.”

“So I hear,” Shinji smiled. It was just a little forced, but the answering smile that graced Kaworu’s face was reward enough.

 

They were driven to Asuka’s house without any questioning. Shinji was surprised: he would have at least expected some reaction from the driver to Kaworu’s limp form (still awake, but doing an excellent job at pretending not to be), but Gendo’s servants were impassive as ever. Shinji could almost resent them for it: to be ignored when you had built plans and backup plans to excuse your odd behaviour was galling.

At his request, they were dropped off at a square a few streets from Asuka’s and, after Shinji had stumbled through his request to be picked up again later, the driver left.

Touching Kaworu’s skin didn’t bring the same reaction it had the night before, but it was still awkward carrying such a large doll when you knew he was sentient. The odd looks from passers-by didn’t help, so by the time they got to Asuka’s front door, a snarl of red in a street of passively brown and grey houses, Shinji all but jumped to knock on it.

A few beats passed before, with a clacking sound that rang fear into Shinji’s heart, he heard her stalk to the door. It swung open, and Asuka stared down at him imperiously (there was a reason she had had the door custom-built on a higher level than the street). She cocked an eyebrow, inspecting him, then spun around on one hobnail boot and walked back into the house, shouting, “Make sure to slam the door properly this time” as she went.

Shinji did as she instructed, wincing at the deafening bang (she’d probably got that custom-made too), and followed the swishing of her fiery skirts along the worn carpet.

Her house was alive, it seemed to him. Everything _moved_ , there, and there were no empty spaces: countless shelves along the narrow entrance corridor were stacked with so many jars that they jingled and jostled for position, threatening to jump off with every step either of the children took on the unsteady floorboards. Shinji knew from experience not to peer inside them too closely, but even from the corner of his eye he could see writhing and wriggling among the more mundane ingredients. He tried not to think about it. The walls, while undoubtedly clean (as if Asuka would ever stand to have a dirty house) were covered with faded wallpaper that seemed to buzz and hum with life; if Shinji made sure to blatantly not-look at it, it almost felt like tendrils of excess magic came peeling out in waving, static strips to brush up against his skin.

Eventually the corridor opened into Asuka’s greenhouse-style workshop, and here was where the house really came into its own. Pots and cauldrons and vases and tightly sealed jars were all over – it was a challenge just finding enough space to walk – and they were all abuzz in a happy, chaotic commotion of clashing magic. Wildly different spells sat maturing (or forgotten) side by side, potions sizzled on tiny stoves, steam rose in puffs and the occasional coloured burst, and through it all, a myriad of smells assaulted Shinji’s nose, too many to filter through the few of the wall-sized windows that were open. He tip-toed his way through the maze after Asuka’s formidable strides (and he’d be the first to admit she was less clumsy than him, but _really_ , it wasn’t fair to judge when he was holding Kaworu through it all as well) and was more than relieved when they finally got to the garden where, in presumably deliberate contrast to the mess of the workshop, a neat pavilion covered in roses sat waiting on a stretch of lawn.

Shinji sat at the table inside and carefully rested Kaworu up on the chair beside him, watching as Asuka brought out two mugs.

“Coffee?”

He nodded and she sniffed an approval. He’d had to train himself to drink it without gagging, but it was worth it, considering how much she held tea in contempt.

“So why are you here?” Straight to the point as ever.

“I…I’d like to start learning magic and I was wondering if…you know, if you had any books for beginners, or…something…” Shinji wilted under her glare.

“What, the great Shinji finally wants to start taking after Mummy?”

“That’s…that’s not really it…I mean, sort of, but not…not _really_ …I didn’t mean…”

Asuka watched him flounder a little longer before sighing. “Then what _is_ it? And why on earth do you have a doll with you?” she reached to pick Kaworu up, but even before Shinji could change some of his stutters into words, she retracted her hands, frowning. “He’s got magic in him.”

“Yes…that’s why I want to start…” Shinji was saved by a phone ringing inside as Asuka ran to get it after a quick glare at him.

Kaworu looked over at the shaking bundle of nerves and stuttering that was Shinji Ikari. “Are you alright? I can explain if you’d like.”

“I don’t want to put you in danger…”

“But you said you think she’s trustworthy, right?” Kaworu smiled encouragingly. “If you know in your heart that she is, then trust yourself and trust her.”

Shinji just looked down at the doll despairingly as Asuka’s voice became loud enough for them to hear, giving him an excuse not to answer.

“I don’t need _you_ rattling on about it to me as well, Misato! They told me I couldn’t do it and I proved them wrong: what’s all the _fuss_ about? Yeah, okay, but… _Yes_ , but…Listen to me! I don’t care if that band of amateurs were insulted: they absolutely deserved it.” She went silent for a minute, pacing around in the conservatory, before saying begrudgingly, “Look, I don’t particularly care if I make enemies, but if you _insist_ , I’ll stop showing up idiots who can’t recognise my power. Happy? Fine. Yeah, I’ve got it, Misato, you say that every time. Well, Shinji’s right here so you can shut up about it for once! What, do you want to talk to him?” Shinji made frantic ‘no, no way, definitely not’ gestures and Asuka snooted at them, nodding some more, then put the phone back on the holder with only a little bit of a slam.

She marched back to the table and sat down, crossing her legs in what would probably be a confrontational way if there was anyone to confront.

“So? I’m still waiting for an explanation.”

“Um…well, you see…” Shinji glanced down at Kaworu who nodded happily and stood up on his chair so he could at least see Asuka.

The girl raised her eyebrows. “So the doll’s moving now. I’m going to need an explanation for that one, too.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Miss Asuka,” Kaworu said in that disarmingly charming way he had, ignoring or oblivious to her lack of courtesy. “My name’s Kaworu. I’m an unfinished doll created by Miss Yui’s magic and have only just woken up after a very long sleep, but Shinji has kindly agreed to learn magic to finish me properly.”

There was heavy beat of silence.

“Yui created a living creature.”

Shinji couldn’t really tell if it was a question or not, but Kaworu nodded so he did as well, tentatively.

Asuka narrowed her eyes. “What the _fuck_.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing Asuka really is difficult...

With Kaworu’s help and natural diplomacy, the explanation was finished a lot quicker and with a lot less blood than Shinji could have hoped. Asuka was still tapping her feet, arms crossed, a murderous look on her face, but she hadn’t actually flown into a rage yet, so that was something. Shinji watched her meekly, mentally begging Kaworu not to do anything to express concern, because that was sure to set her off. He could practically see the ‘Are you alright, Miss Asuka?’ waiting on the doll’s lips, but luckily Asuka spoke before the tension became taught enough for him to say it.

“I can’t _believe_ this,” she huffed, with a growl to her voice. “Is that why you came here? To shove it in my face that Yui did some things that I haven’t? To act like you’re better than me, just because your mother got in there first?!”

Shinji shook his head wildly, but, as he might have expected, that didn’t calm her. Rising to her feet, she slammed her hands onto the table, grating the metal legs into the tiles of the pavilion with a shivering screech. “You listen to me: I’m going to do it too! I’m going to do it too, and _better_ , you’ll see! Forget a doll, I’m going to craft a human, a real one, with free will and thought! I’ve already done so much more than she had at my age. So don’t go thinking you and your mother are better than me, do you hear?!”

Shinji nodded, but to his dismay Kaworu broke in. “Miss Asuka,” Shinji already began to cringe as Asuka’s eyes flew to the doll, her nose wrinkling. Kaworu remained unperturbed. “If I might, please don’t consider my existence a threat to your work. Miss Yui was always telling me how progress can only be made through cooperation and the continual passing on of work: she of all people would encourage you the most in your endeavours. Neither Shinji nor I came here to spark a rivalry: I simply want to be finished. After all,” he smiled ruefully, “I’m incomplete. That’s already something you can improve on in your own work. And if you wish, you’re welcome to examine how I’m made, but please, help us.”

Everything went quiet save for the slow creaks of Kaworu’s joints as he moved back from the table. Then Asuka sat back down with a thump. “Are you serious about learning magic?” She fixed Shinji with a burning stare. “I won’t help you if you’re not going to do things properly.”

“I’m serious!”

“Then fine, I’ll extend my lowly hand to help the great Ikari family.” Just as she moved to get up, she stopped suddenly, eyes flitting back to his. “Does your father know about this?”

“…no, I don’t think so…”

“He’d throw a hissy fit if he knew you so much as visited a sorcerer and you’re trying to learn magic for yourself?” She grinned. “Idiot.”

Shinji managed to exhale properly as she disappeared back into the house.

“I think that went well,” Kaworu said pleasantly.

“Mm…I was really worried for a while, though. I didn’t realise she was so…fixated on creating life…”

“Do you think so? I’m not convinced she’d thought about it much before. Don’t you think it’s more likely she just felt her position was threatened?”

Shinji looked at him sharply.  “Why would she think that? She’s leagues better at magic than anyone, for her age. We couldn’t possibly be a threat to her.”

“That’s true too.”

Before Shinji could puzzle over it, Asuka came back into the garden carrying a bundle of thick-bound books, and dumped them on the table in front of Shinji.

“Here: these’ll get you started. I don’t have any need for such _basic_ spells and theory anymore, so you’re welcome to them.” Somehow the words came out more as a sneer than anything else. “There’s nothing complex in there, but I’m sure you can use Mummy’s notes to find what you need about _that_ ,” she pointed at Kaworu.

“Thank you!” Shinji said hurriedly, collecting the books in his arms, but stopped when Asuka made a long _tsk_ , sighing in exasperation.

“As if you could possibly get started on your own: you’d be hopeless! Have you even looked inside them?” Shinji carefully opened the front cover of the first book in the pile, paging through it gently so as to cause the least offence possible. The spells, though certainly legible, were far more complicated than he could have imagined. Gone were the illusions of neat, bullet pointed instructions: these were thick paragraphs written in what looked like code.

“A-ah…what _is_ this…?”

“I told you. Learning to even understand spells is the first step, _idiot_.”

“Then, Miss Asuka,” Kaworu stepped forwards, radiating joy and purity to such a sickening level that Shinji couldn’t believe he wasn’t doing it on purpose to grate on Asuka’s nerves, “could you please teach us how to read the spells?”

Asuka rolled her eyes to meet Shinji’s. “You need a goddamn doll to speak for you now?”

“No, I…um…Asuka, could you? You’re right: I can’t read this at all, so please?”

“Well, I don’t really have much choice with you looking at me like the pitiful runt you are, now do I?”

Grimacing at her roundabout way of putting things (because really, he had just about had it with Asuka, and people in general, for the day), Shinji moved the book over to her for her to explain.

It wasn’t actually as difficult as it had first looked, but then, things often weren’t. Asuka explained the shorthand quickly and brashly, rolling her eyes whenever he didn’t get it straight away, but always explaining it again until he did. That was just how she was, and if Shinji had learnt to deal with his father (well, maybe that was an overstatement, but he was getting there), shutting up and letting Asuka walk over him was hardly difficult.

Eventually she sat back and looked at him expectantly. “Try out a spell, now. I want to see if you’ve actually taken in anything I’ve said.”

“Try one out? W-which one?” he stammered. Shinji felt it was rude of her to put him on the spot like that without warning because he really could have done with a week or two’s preparation for this.

“What do I care? Flick through the book and pick one of the early ones.”

He ended up on a spell to induce blooming in flowers and Asuka peered at the page before laughing. “That should be simple enough, even for a beginner, if you’ve got Yui’s blood in you.” She said it like an insult, and Shinji couldn’t keep the scowl off his face. He stood up quickly and marched over to one of the rose vines crawling up the side of the pavilion, carrying the book with him, and spotted a small bud that hadn’t quite bloomed yet.

Putting his hand to it, he suddenly felt a tingle from the vine itself as if it were moving underneath his hand. It was the same feeling he’d got from Kaworu the night before. He tried to remember how he’d started to see the magic, but he didn’t even have to try: with a simple touch and a slight switch of focus from the world around him to this plant and everything that made it, he could see and feel it all.

The book dropped from his hands, making both Kaworu and Asuka startle, but Shinji didn’t notice. He reached up, brushing his fingers over the writhing strands he could feel woven into the plant. Magic had been used on it before, obviously, and with just the smallest of touches he could immediately tell that it was a growing spell, shaping the plant to suit the user. So Asuka had used magic for it. That was interesting. A thought crossed his mind and he smiled. If Asuka was so intent on playing him up to be some great sorcerer because of his mother, then he’d just have to show her he was worthy, wouldn’t he?

It was easier than he’d expected: all thoughts of written spells left his brain, and he just had to think and feel and build up the threads in his mind before breathing them into the plant. Within a minute he had formed a small string of spell – clumsy, certainly, and badly woven together so it would certainly break apart within a day, but still there. Biting his lip in concentration, he pushed it from his fingers into the plant and stretched with all his mental power, pulling it this way and that to force the plant to accept it. And, with a shudder, the roses began to move.

It took a while, admittedly. He was sweating with exertion and, once he’d planted the spell in properly, he moved backwards on shaky legs to watch the roses twist around themselves, changing position and, he noted with great satisfaction, losing their red to bright white as if the colour was being sucked out of them.

“What the hell is this?” Asuka frowned, and Shinji shrugged at her, too tired to argue. He moved back to his seat, and smiled gratefully at Kaworu’s worried offer of a handkerchief (miniature, of course).

“What possessed you to do that? Do you have any idea how long it took me to design that?!”

“Just thought it’d be prettier this way.”

“Listen, you absolute idiot: this is _my_ house, not yours. I don’t care how much of a fucking natural at magic you are, you don’t get to ruin people’s property like that.”

He made an apologetic sound, all the fight taken out of him.

“Don’t just nod! Apologise properly!”

“Yeah…I’m sorry, Asuka…”

She glared at him. “If you’re going to end up doing whatever you please, I have no intention of helping you learn.”

“Isn’t that what you do, though?” He knew it was a mistake the second he said it, and Asuka bristled.

“What _I_ do is of no concern to you! _I_ can get away with it because I have the power to back me up, _you_ wouldn’t last a goddamn second-”

She was cut off by a clatter as Kaworu, who had been looking back and forth between them with a pained expression, slumped into the chair lifelessly, eyes glassy before his eyelids clicked closed over them.

Shinji lifted him up hurriedly, and to his relief could still feel the magic swirling under his fingertips, but repressed. Dormant, just like before.

“What’s up with that thing?” Asuka asked.

“He…went to sleep, I think. Like we said, he just falls asleep suddenly sometimes.”

“I guess it really is defective,” she smirked, but her anger had subsided and she didn’t look raring for a fight any longer.

“I think I should probably go now,” Shinji said, checking his watch. Asuka just nodded absent-mindedly.

Carrying an actually lifeless doll as well as a bundle of thick books turned out to be a balancing act as Shinji snaked through the house after Asuka, making sure with every step that Kaworu wasn’t close to falling from the stack of books. He might be magic, but Shinji couldn’t tell what he was actually made of, and he wasn’t prepared to risk it anyway. It was with relief that he finally got into the waiting car after a very self-conscious walk through the streets of Asuka’s neighbourhood.

“Sir,” the driver broke their usual silence.

“Yes?” he was worried, now. He’d assumed the driver would know better than to ask questions about the books he was bringing back, but that conviction was crumbling and he anxiously tried to push them to the side without making it look too conspicuous.

“You have a meeting scheduled with your father when you arrive. He expects you promptly.”

“O-oh. Thank you.” Well, that tore it. He’d so been looking forward to a quiet afternoon alone, too.


	5. Chapter 5

The stairs up to Gendo’s office were nothing if not intimidating. Fuyutsuki led Shinji up, politely ignoring how much the boy was struggling with his books and thankfully still sleeping doll that he hadn’t been allowed to drop off beforehand. The journey had an air of doom to it, Shinji thought, as he wobbled up the marble stairs with clunking feet. Presumably there was a possibility that his father wouldn’t ask about the books, but he wouldn’t put money on it personally, and it was far more likely he was going to end up punished and disgraced. Again. It wasn’t as if it would make much difference, he reflected bitterly.

Fuyutsuki knocked on the doors at the top of the stairs and, after a carefully timed pause, opened one to lead Shinji through before walking across the massive room to take his place by the desk.

If the house was purposefully empty and lifeless, this room took it to an almost insulting level of hostility. Everything was in varying shades of dull grey or black, and though the opposite end of the office had some cabinets and bookshelves to give some indication that this wasn’t a tomb, the rest of it was just a vast stretch of marble floor. Shinji felt even more out of place than usual, and as there seemed nothing else for it, he gently set his books down onto the floor so he could actually see his father.

He came to the conclusion that actually, there was merit to having something to hide behind, because Gendo was unwelcoming as ever, glaring (Shinji was certain) behind dark glasses at his son. It seemed to be his natural state. Shinji had certainly only rarely seen him otherwise.

“You…you called for me?” Shinji tried valiantly to keep the waver out of his voice, but really, it was a losing battle from the start.

“You’ve started to learn magic.” It was a statement: it was common knowledge that Gendo seldom asked questions if not to force someone to dig themselves further into a hole of frantic denial. If he called you in, it was because he already knew everything anyway.

Shinji nodded. That was that, then. He could say goodbye to doing _anything_ for himself for once, for feeling like he was _meant_ to be doing something for once, for being with someone who liked him for who _was_ for once.

“You’re to find your mother’s work and continue it. Once you’ve completed her vision to satisfaction, report back to me. Fuyutsuki will keep an eye on your progress.”

“I…I’m to what?”

“I believe I made myself clear.” A familiar edge to his voice cut fear into the already building tension, but Shinji was used to that by now.

“But…But I thought I was never supposed to use magic! I thought you were...worried…” The second he said the word, connecting ‘worry’ to this expressionless, contemptuous man in front of him, he began to feel very small all of a sudden. He wished he could take it back. With a rising pulse, he wished feverishly that he hadn’t shown his father how deluded he’d been, to think there was actually some human sentimentality to him.

“You will complete Yui’s work as only one of her blood can. That’s all.”

“Then…why…” his voice was a whisper, but even a whisper echoed in the cavernous room. “Why would you leave it so long…? Why not push me into it from the start?”

“Magic takes hold when it will. Even you should know that.”

“But you’ve been making sure I never came into contact with it all my life! Why-”

“Don’t attach your assumptions onto my actions as if they were fact.” The words hung in the air with a clear message of finality. Arms shaking from more than exertion, Shinji picked up the books again, unthinkingly angling his body between his father and Kaworu’s body, as if that would somehow keep the doll safe. As if to prove he was useful for anything.

The walk back to his own room was faster than the trudge to the office, and he was almost sprinting by the time he slammed the books onto the floor and dropped onto his bed, holding Kaworu in front of him.

“Wake up,” he said, still breathing heavily. “I can feel you’re still in there, so wake up. Please. Please wake up. I want you to, so please…please…” But the comforting buzz of magic on the doll’s skin was so faint he could barely feel it. With a shuddering release of breath, he carefully put Kaworu against a pillow and then shoved his face into the other, gripping it until his knuckles felt more like rock than bone. It wasn’t just that Kaworu was asleep: Shinji was finally seeing for himself what people really meant when they said a sorcerer couldn’t wield magic if they weren’t in control of themselves. To grow the spells and work them the right way, you needed to use your own inherent magic as a catalyst, a kick-start, but in order to do that you needed to be able to control it properly, and to know it fully. And self-control and self-introspection were not things that Shinji Ikari was good at.

He didn’t _want_ to feel it, he didn’t _want_ to come to terms with who he was. It made sense that someone who had as much boundless confidence as Asuka did would be able to flourish, but he didn’t even want to think about coming to grips with himself. So it was hopeless. It had all been hopeless from the start, because apparently all he’d been good for in his father’s eyes was continuing his mother’s work, and all that Kaworu needed him for was to do the same, and even Asuka would only look down on him because he couldn’t be bothered to do the _one damn thing_ he needed to do so that he could actually fulfil all their expectations.

The pillow was hot and airless, and he turned his head slightly to breathe, hating himself for it. Better he should die here, where he wouldn’t bother anyone. Better he should die than live at all, if he couldn’t do the one thing he was wanted for.

The ancient clock in the corner of his room ticked on, counting out minutes that collected and piled up into drafts of emptiness, of Shinji breathing and drenching his mind in sourness, in self-loathing, in hatred.

And then a creak came from behind him, and a gentle hand rested on his neck.

“Shinji? Are you asleep?”

He’d do better to not say a thing, and not bring Kaworu into it. “No.”

“How long has it been?”

“I don’t know.”

The harshness seemed to stump Kaworu for a second but, never one to be deterred by cold words, he tried his best. “Is something wrong?”

Shinji thought that one over. Was something wrong? Apparently it had all been this way anyway, so really it was more that he was just aware that it had all been wrong from the start. And it didn’t matter, anyway. If he told him, Kaworu would just become uninterested and disappointed. Shinji clenched his hands tighter, curling up.

He’d been silent for too long. Kaworu tried again, with his sweetest words that resonated even in Shinji’s ears. “I’d like to help you, if I can. Please tell me?”

“My father knew. All along.”

Kaworu waited politely, his hand still brushing gently at Shinji’s nape.

“He never cared about protecting me from magic. He never cared at all. He just wants me to continue my mother’s work. But I can’t do it,” his mouth turned upwards in an attempt at a smile. “I felt it when I touched you. I can’t do it anymore.”

“That’s not true…”

“ _You don’t know anything!_ How could you possibly know?! How could you know how this feels?!”

“You worked a wonderful spell back at Miss Asuka’s, though.”

“Because I was angry! Because I was spiteful! Because Asuka’s magic lives and breathes off of her own anger, and all I had to do was fuel what was already there! But I’m not there anymore, and I can’t do it.”

“Shinji…”

“Don’t comfort me as if you know anything about this.” He spoke through gritted teeth, hating what he was saying but meaning it too.

“I know, Shinji.”

“No you _don’t_ : you can’t even _imagine_ -”

“I’ve never used magic myself, but it’s a two-way process,” Kaworu’s level voice cut in. “I can feel it too. I felt all of the love Yui put into me, so I know how it works. I could feel her magic too, as she made me. She put so much love into everything, even…” his voice trailed off for a moment. “Every project she had, she used her love to grow it. No exceptions. We all felt her boundless power and emotion. And I felt it from you too. I know it’s in there, and I know that you can learn how to use it. Even if now it feels like you can’t, that you’ll never want to touch the depths of who you are, that’s okay. You might come round to it, you might not, but either way it’s okay. Don’t push yourself further than you’re comfortable just to make other people proud of you.”

“But…you need me to…to…” Shinji had calmed down enough to feel the weight of Kaworu’s soothing words bringing him back to reality, but those words alone couldn’t convince him he wasn’t worthless.

“I need you to be happy. I _want_ you to be happy. What comes after will come after, but I’ll live, either way. Please don’t hate yourself on my account, Shinji.” It was a plea, and Shinji could hear the weakness laid out on display. For him.

Kaworu continued before he could summon up a response. “I know it’s scary, I know it’s difficult, but that’s just how these things are. You only have to take it a step at a time, and I’ll be here no matter what you choose. You know you have magic inside you, and even if your self-actualisation is a barrier before it, I know you have the potential to get there. Trust yourself a little.”

“That’s what you said before, too.”

Kaworu laughed lightly. “That’s because I feel you could do with a lot more trust in yourself. If you do trust yourself, and if you trust me when I say that you are more wonderful than you think, then coming to control yourself will be all the easier.”

Shinji unclenched his hands and felt his chest release with them. Hesitantly, he turned over to face Kaworu’s wide smile waiting for him.

“Do you promise?” It was childish, but…baby steps, always baby steps.

“I’d promise you anything, Shinji.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've pretty much come around to the idea that I'm using their anime characterisations, so that's why Kaworu comes off as so desperately...sentimental? Ray-of-sunshine-in-this-dark-world?


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a heads up: I'm going away for a while this week so updates may be a little erratic because of a lack of internet, but I'll still be writing.

Time seemed to pass differently with Kaworu. Shinji wasn’t really sure why, nor what the difference was, but the atmosphere was different and that much was undeniable. Before, time alone was a constant, punctuating stretches of afternoons and evenings with the neat ticking of multiple clocks at just slightly different speeds from across his rooms (it sounded infuriating, but you did get used to it, after a fashion). He was aware of its passage, and it wasn’t so much an enemy as a rival: ‘When I look up, I’m going to find __ minutes have passed’ and a quick hope that more had gone by, that he’d managed to waste away more of his life, that there had been a longer period of inactivity in which maybe, possibly, something interesting might have happened that he could then go and check on. Hours became acquaintances with their own personalities and specific feelings they elicited within him: 8 AM as he woke, carrying some measure of excitement that the day might be different from the last; 2 PM after lunch was long since finished, with the raw feeling of disappointment as he looked down the countless hours of the afternoon yet to come; 10 PM just before bed, as he stared out of the window onto an empty street and wondered, wondered what sort of use there was in living if it was just to be groomed into living insurance for his father’s work, for his mother’s blood.

But time passed differently, that afternoon. The books were left unread on the well-trodden carpet of Shinji’s bedroom floor and he pointedly ignored them, and Kaworu didn’t mention them again. Instead, the doll started asking questions, trying to build up an idea of what the world was like beyond the walls of the house. Apparently Yui had told him some things, taught him basic skills and facts during her experiments, but enough time had passed since then that he was finding it hard to remember.

“But she taught you how to read and write?”

“While she taught me how to talk, yes.” They sat lounging (although Shinji was never really relaxed enough to _lounge_ , and Kaworu didn’t seem built for it) in the small library and music room of the suite, enjoying the way the bleak afternoon sun lit up the gauzy curtains in short bursts.

“How long did that take?”

Kaworu thought for a second, his forehead wrinkling, and once again Shinji couldn’t help but marvel at how much like real skin it looked. “A few months? A year? I’m really not sure. All of my memories from the start are so fragmented, you see…”

“I’m surprised she had the time.” He didn’t mean it to come out bitterly, but good intentions couldn’t hide his frown as he tried to suppress the heated surge of jealousy. They’d worked out that Kaworu must have been originally started around the time of Shinji’s birth, after all.

Kaworu noticed. “It was while she did other work, and she did use magic to make me learn quicker,” he said in a soft voice. “She didn’t spend hours and hours down there with me. And she talked about you, too, you know.”

That comment made too many twisting emotions rise in Shinji’s throat for him to handle, and he quickly changed the subject. “Where was ‘down there’, anyway? Do you remember anything at all about it?”

“I’d recognise it if I saw it, but nothing more. I was never taken out of there conscious, you know.”

“Can…can you tell me about it? What her workshops looked like?” It was a tense question and he wasn’t even sure why he’d asked it: it would mean little to him, either way. It didn’t matter what his mother’s study looked like, what her favourite place looked like…it was just…He tried to rationalise it to himself. Surely any insight into what a sorcerer’s workplace was like (aside from Asuka’s, because he had a feeling she was a little abnormal in that respect, or at least he hoped) would help him build up a better idea of what he should be aiming for. There was no sentimentality in the question at all. None.

But then Kaworu smiled gently at him and all pretences melted away. “I’ll see what I can remember. It was…” he coughed an embarrassed little laugh, “it was much tidier than Miss Asuka’s, that’s for sure. Everything was arranged neatly. And when I was there, there were lots of books on human anatomy, on psychology and things like that on the shelves. She was…Yui was very dedicated to creating true life, I think. It was all she researched in my time. I could see different spell-books and ingredients and so on, but she never used even one of them if it wasn’t to further her experiments in creating life.” He lapsed into silence, staring out of the curtain-covered window and for a second, with the way the light shone on him and reflected in those glassy red eyes, he truly looked lifeless.

A little shaken, Shinji struggled for something to say. “But…she created you, so it was worth it…”

He relaxed as Kaworu looked back at him, nodding mechanically. “Yes…I suppose you might say that.” After that, the room went quiet. It wasn’t as if Shinji was unused to long periods of silence but for the house’s erratic creaking, but he felt uneasy. Odd, because Kaworu usually managed to make silences feel natural.

“Can you tell me more about what you remember from the beginning?” he asked, and to his utmost relief, whatever had taken hold of Kaworu seemed to release him and his usual smile came back. The doll nodded, settling back into the great expanse of armchair surrounding him.

“Let’s see…”

And so the afternoon passed, much quicker than any before it. Company tended to eat away time, after all, and before they knew it, Shinji had to leap to his feet and run into the drawing room to make sure the servant bringing dinner didn’t see him alone talking to a doll, thereby cementing his reputation as ‘completely lost it’ even further, and soon enough after that it became so dark outside that they returned to the bedroom.

Shinji almost tripped up on the books that were splayed, forgotten, across the floor before the lights flickered into life so he could see them, and after hopping around a little to catch his balance, he looked down at them accusatorily.

A small voice came from his arms, trying very hard not to sound even the slightest bit expectant or pushy: “Would you like to try tomorrow?”

Yes, put it off until tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after. That was how such decisions usually went, with Shinji. But with an encouraging smile (that had perhaps just a smidgen of hope in it) directed up at him, it felt different, this time. So he nodded slowly.

 

And with that decided, the next morning found them in the library with one of the easier looking books spread open on a table. Kaworu sat next to it, casually looking around the room and pretending he didn’t notice how Shinji was trying to overcome a mountain of reluctance and self-defeating habits. Invasive thoughts of ‘he’s just going to get impatient and angry with you’ kept bustling into Shinji’s mind and it took more concentration than he’d want to admit to ignore them and hesitantly reach out to lay his hand on the book.

Like ripping off a scab, he turned the pages swiftly to a random spell and tore his hand away. Kaworu looked at it. “‘A spell to change colours’? How nice!”

Shinji mumbled an affirmative sound as he scanned the page. Thanks to Asuka’s crash course, he could certainly read it all, but the confidence he’d had in her garden was gone completely, leaving his arms weak and nervous. There was no muscle memory about it: he simply couldn’t remember how he’d done it before, and it felt like anything he tried would be destined to fail. But that was just typical, wasn’t it? Everything he did seemed destined to fail. Or just not be worth anything. And in the end, he’d be left with nothing to his name but blood and –

“Shinji? Would you like to try this one or do something else?”

Shaken out of his spiralling thoughts, Shinji was speechless for a second. “Uh…I…I’ll try it…”

Clearly sensing that the boy needed more than a little pushing, Kaworu walked to a rather tasteless glass paperweight on the table. “Why don’t you try it on this? I think a calm green would be a lot nicer than…um…bright yellow, don’t you?” he said, trying to be nice.

Shinji nodded, moved almost more by the doll’s prompting than by his own will, and he carefully put a hand on the paperweight.

It shouldn’t have been difficult, really. The first step was always the same: to reach inside your own inherent magic and spark the spell into life. But even that was apparently too much, and no matter what he did, he couldn’t do it.

Shinji tried: he tried to remember everything he’d felt from the previous days, tried to find this ‘magic’ that was apparently inside him, but he couldn’t. He didn’t know where to look, he didn’t know how to find it, he didn’t even know what sort of shape it took anymore.

His breath grew heavy as panic rose, blooming into waves washing through his body: _why can’t I do this? Why can’t I do the one thing I’m supposed to? Why am I so_ useless _all the time?! This is stupid, this is never going to work, this is-_

And then a small, ceramic-cool hand touched his own and everything felt different all of a sudden. Kaworu’s worried expression seemed blurred, muffled under the sudden rush of sensation as what he had to do – what he was born to do – all became so much clearer. Shinji could feel it now, and it wasn’t so much a single bundle of energy as a force that throbbed through his veins, all around his body. So all he had to do was release it.

He didn’t even spare a glance for the instructions: why bother when everything was so painfully _obvious_? If he just wanted to change a colour, all he had to do was add a small enchantment and it was so _easy_ : just feel for what you wanted, create the spell and weave it in. It was so painfully obvious: how could anyone even need written instructions for it, really? How could he not have seen it before? All you had to do was feel, and then the magic would just do it all for you.

He was brought out of the haze by a small laugh. Shinji took a second to refocus his eyes and hissed through his teeth as Kaworu burst into bubbly laughter, admiring his now green skin.

“I’m so sorry!” Shinji gasped, but Kaworu waved it away, still laughing.

“No harm done, as long as you can change me back,” he said once he’d recovered, beaming at Shinji’s flush of embarrassment. “And at least we have confirmation that you can still work magic now, right?”

“R-right…” A poisonous thought struck him. “But it’s not the same! You’ve already got magic in you, so it’s easier!”

“Then try the paperweight again.”

There wasn’t much to argue against, there. So Shinji moved his hand back to the glass monstrosity and concentrated, except, to his great surprise, he didn’t need to concentrate so much anymore. It just came naturally again. With barely any effort, the paperweight’s morally offensive yellow faded into a quite lovely aquamarine colour, and both Shinji and Kaworu looked at it in satisfaction.

“Well done!”

“It wasn’t that much…”

“You can’t say that after how much you’ve accomplished, Shinji! You did well!”

And Shinji allowed himself a smile, widening into a laugh as he moved to change Kaworu’s skin back to its usual death-like pallor.

“Why don’t you try another?” Kaworu asked, turning the book’s pages. “How about-”

“No, it’s okay. I can just make it up.” He said it with confidence, more than he’d felt in a long time, and though Kaworu seemed taken aback, he eventually nodded slowly.

“Alright. If you’re sure.”

And Shinji _was_ , that was the weird thing. He was so sure of it all, so he walked to one of the bookcases and put his hand on it, closing his eyes. Within half a minute, the wood was writhing and changing shape with little popping sounds as it stripped away from itself, changing to a lattice-like design.

Kaworu barely had time to praise it and congratulate him before Shinji sunk to a crouch and began to thicken the carpet into more vibrant colours, reworking the pattern into something less inoffensively unspecific. He felt alive, flooded with energy and purpose, and all thoughts of inadequacy had left his mind. This was somewhere where he was useful and needed, and he’d be damned if he didn’t show Kaworu that he could be relied on.

Moving from piece to piece, Shinji worked through the furniture faster and faster, his imagination bursting through in uncontrolled feelings as he silently ordered each thing he touched to change. Bookshelves, lampshades, wallpaper and tables all bent at his command, and then, out of breath and mind racing quickly to come up with a change that would please Kaworu the most, he raced to the door. The second his hands touched it, though, the woodwork splintered with the force of his will, fracturing and finally exploding all over the room with a sickening screeching sound.

When the dust had settled enough to breathe safely, Kaworu and Shinji turned to face each other at the same time, straightening up out of their protective stances.

Kaworu was the first to speak. “Are you alright? You’re not hurt?” There was no trace of his usual smile, only wide, distraught eyes and a trembling mouth.

Shinji shook his head hurriedly, instantly regretting it as a cloud of light-headedness overtook him and he had to reach out for a nearby shelf to steady himself. “No, no…I’m okay, really. What about you?”

“It’d take more than splinters to cut through your mother’s protective spells.” The doll smiled in relief and Shinji let out the breath he’d been holding, brushing his clothes down and staring regretfully back at the wreckage of what used to be a fairly useful door.

“Perhaps you should take it a bit slower from now on?” Kaworu suggested gently, and Shinji was only too happy to agree.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing magic is actually really weird? I know what I want to describe, but it's such an odd thing because it feels like everyone imagines magic differently. I'm just trying my best to make it sound physical and tangible while also being as non-sexual as possible, but it's a constant struggle, especially when I originally had lines like "Shinji could feel it now, throbbing deep inside him as he connected with Kaworu".


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter and the next are a little longer than usual, but that's mostly because I was away without internet and all I really wanted to do was write (living the artistic writer life yo)

It was mutually agreed that it would probably be better if they limited the practise to one session a day, so, early the next morning (but not too early, because Shinji was once again brought to his knees by a bout of nervousness and worry that Kaworu had to encourage him through), they stood in the now doorless library over the book again (Shinji could almost feel insulted at how few eyebrows were raised when he admitted he needed the mess cleaned up to the servants).

With stiff movements, Shinji paged through it (and he definitely _wasn’t_ wasting time by pretending to look for the perfect spell or anything), and finally stopped – more out of sheer surprise than actual interest – at a spell to create succulents between five and twenty centimetres in height.

Kaworu looked at it. “Oddly specific.”

“I think it has to be, based on the amount of growth potential?”

“Well, give it a go, I suppose. I’m sure a nice cactus will liven up the place,” he said cheerfully, and Shinji smirked at the idea of anything actually bringing life to the house.

Spurred on, he started to decode the spell based on what he remembered from Asuka’s tutorial. He could feel his magic begin to pulsate as he searched for it, and with expectations high, he tried to follow the next step, but it didn’t take long before he realised it felt off.

Though he could certainly read the spell and understand what it was asking for, every action he took was stilted, like walking in shoes that were several sizes too big so you had to angle your feet properly just to keep from tripping up in them; he could see it was possible to go faster, and he knew something was wrong, but he just couldn’t speed up while following the instructions.

Stuck in the trance-like state of spell-weaving, his eyes flickered open to read the next step when he decided that the whole thing was unbearably stupid. There was no point to following the steps and leaving the spell in limbo every few seconds: how was anything supposed to get done then? He knew what to do: he’d just let his magic do it all, like it had before.

Irritated, he snapped his eyes shut again and concentrated on just producing a decent-sized cactus. It was an unusually sticky process compared to what he’d done before, and it felt as if the spells didn’t roll into each other as naturally as they might, but it was so much better than the stop-start frustration of following the book’s steps, laid out for him like barriers. Within half a minute, a bulbous cactus covered in deceptively furry spines had grown to full size on the desk in front of him, sitting snugly in a terracotta pot.

Kaworu clapped his hands appreciatively.

“That was wonderful! Was it difficult, following the instructions? They really do look cryptic.”

Dizzy from exertion, Shinji reached a hand out to grab the table for support, smiling with perhaps a touch of pride. “I didn’t. It was taking too long, so I just did it myself.”

“Oh?” Kaworu frowned. “Is that okay? Shouldn’t you-”

“There’s no point in following instructions if they just hold me back.” The words flew off Shinji’s tongue, mercilessly cutting through Kaworu’s concern. As usual, a flood of guilt struck him and he quickly added, “A-ah, I mean, it’s just that if I can do it without them, there’s no use in following them, right?”

Unease still hung over them, but Kaworu nodded anyway.

Suddenly desperate to prove himself, Shinji flung the page over and started on the next spell, only narrowly missing catching his sleeve on the cactus.

By the time they’d both had enough of magic for the day, there was a whole array of objects scattered around the room, and thankfully the tension between them had thinned slightly, though more from an unwillingness to talk about it than any compromise. Shinji looked around at the mess of bric-a-brac, wondering who on earth would ever find the need (or desire) to create, among other curious objects, a door handle in the shape of a howling wolf with its fangs bared just right to hurt no matter how you held it, and he came to a conclusion.

“I don’t think I like creating things.”

Kaworu looked at him quizzically, playing with a fuzzy cat doll.

“Sorcerers have specialities, most of the time, and I don’t think mine is creation.”

“What sort of specialities are there?”

“Well, Asuka’s a potions’ genius, although that’s not difficult to guess just from her house,” Kaworu nodded in sage agreement, “and my mother…She was a special case. She was skilled at most things, but best at anything to do with living creatures. I don’t think it’s usually that specific, though.”

“Do you have any idea what yours might be?”

Shinji gave it some thought. “I’m…not sure…I’ve only ever really done creation and shape-shifting, so I can’t say, but…I prefer shape-shifting. It comes more naturally.”

“Perhaps we should focus on that, then?”

Shinji nodded. “Mm…I think I’d prefer that to potions or prediction just based on how messy they are.” Prompted by Kaworu’s puzzled expression, he clarified with a grimace. “I’ve only met one Seer, but you don’t ever forget the smell of blood around them. It gets into the walls.”

“Blood?”

Shinji nodded, wrinkling his nose. “Animal’s blood. From entrails and rituals and that sort of thing.”

“How interesting!”

Shinji gave him a Look. “I’m not doing that. I guess I could try charming or something, but…”

“I don’t think it’s bad if you just stick to shape-shifting, if you’re comfortable with it.”

Shinji nodded, and looked around the room again. “I just wonder how I’m going to get rid of all this.”

“You could send it to Miss Asuka as a present?”

Shinji blanched at the thought.

 

It was no easier to follow the book’s instructions the next day than it had been previously. Kaworu kept asking – in worried little looks, in drawn out sentences and suggestions – if maybe he might prefer to do things by the book possibly, for once? but it just didn’t _work_ for Shinji like that. Using the book was like knowingly handicapping himself, slowing down and taking it at a beginner’s level despite him knowing he was so much better than that because he could feel the magic burning through him, scorching his mind with its intensity as he kept it waiting while reading the next step. It wasn’t natural, it wasn’t comfortable, and he couldn’t bring himself to do it for any hums of concern or furrowing snowy-grey eyebrows.

It became confrontational, almost, over the next few days. Neither Shinji nor Kaworu were confrontational people, but Shinji had no choice but to do things his way when he couldn’t understand why Kaworu was getting so upset. They tried to talk about it, sometimes, but it never came to much, because Kaworu would always say the same thing: “I just think something’s wrong. I feel like you should spend more time learning the basics rather than rushing into something dangerous, that’s all.”

And that was all well and good, but Shinji couldn’t bear to waste a second.

Wasting time meant drawing out the weeks before he could live up to people’s expectations. Wasting time meant more guilt when he assured Fuyutsuki he was progressing well when the old man came to check up on him every so often. Wasting time meant more time spent being useless and inadequate and worthless and countless other words he’d stabbed himself with over and over throughout the years.

He wanted to shout back at Kaworu, even though he knew the doll would never rise to it (or perhaps _because_ he knew he’d never rise to it). He wanted to say, “Why isn’t this okay? You just need me to do this, so why not let me? It’s all I’m good for anyway.”

But he never said it. He was reminded too easily of the sad look Kaworu always got when Shinji spoke of his own uselessness, his powerlessness in the face of a world that didn’t need him.

Days moved on in a flurry of shape-changing: of malformed furniture, bookcases that melted into walls, tables that stood like functionally pointless works of art, and the countless practical additions that dotted them, and even though they were both obviously trying, Shinji and Kaworu couldn’t come to an agreement over the spell-books. They were always left lying open, invitingly, at the start of every session, and ended in the same way, on the same page. And though they got along just as well as usual for the most part, that one little sticking point was enough to do _something_ to the relationship they had: to dot their conversations with words they held back, to add one too many rueful stares, to make Shinji realise that nothing he had was free from destruction.

He began to imagine resentment in Kaworu’s blood-red eyes.

 

Misato came to visit on a bad day, in the end. She couldn’t have known, of course, that by arriving she was ripping into a particularly tense stand-off, but that was how it was, and when her cheerful “Good morning, Shinji!” rang into the suite, Shinji decided he couldn’t stand any more of the wretchedly concealed disappointment and sadness on Kaworu’s face, and he left the library without a word.

Misato engulfed him in a hug before he had the time to greet her.

“It’s been so long!” she cried out cheerfully, ruffling his hair and squishing his cheeks and basically just invading his personal space to her heart’s content. Shinji was used to it.

“Morning, Miss Misato,” he said once he’d been given back the use of his face, and he gestured to the lounge (a room he basically never used because he never got any visitors, but he wasn’t about to go back in the library).

As usual, she flung herself onto the large sofa and relaxed, sighing in bliss. “You have no idea how great it is to spread out like this – I’ve been stuck in meetings and miniature flats and tiny, squished little boat cabins for weeks.”

Shinji sat across from her, nodding to show interest. “Is work difficult at the moment?”

“No more than usual.” She grinned conspiratorially. “Your father always works us to the bone. But what about _you_?” With a rather impressively unnecessary amount of force, she swung her legs up to sit upright, elbows on knees and head supported by her hands. “Asuka’s been telling me you’ve started to show your magic.”

“A-ah…she said…that, did she…?” He’d kind of assumed she would, but it was still unwelcome news. Misato smiled smugly as she nodded, and a nasty thought suddenly took hold of him. “Uh, she hasn’t been telling…I mean, not many people know, right? It’s still mostly a secret, right?”

“Oh, yeah. Probably. I wouldn’t worry: she’s not really the type to go spilling secrets unless you really get on her bad side. And if it came out that you had started to show, the whole magical community would be buzzing with it,” _a gross exaggeration_ , Shinji thought, “and Ritsuko hasn’t told me about anything like that, so I’m sure it’s fine.” She leaned forward and rubbed his head again, apparently to comfort him.

“That’s alright then, I guess…”

“But tell me how it’s going! Have you specialised yet? I know it’s a bit early, but you’re _you_ , so…”

“I think I like shape-shifting? I’m not really certain, though, and I haven’t tried everything yet…” He tried to downplay it, bring down her excitement so she wouldn’t start having _expectations_ of him, but Misato had always seemed immune to that kind of tactic, and she just laughed.

“Can I see you do something?”

Shinji nodded, and embarked on what turned out to be a fairly lengthy testing session. After the third shape-shift he was asked to do (very subtly, with only a hint of alternative motives to her eagerness), it dawned on him that Misato was probably running tests on him for Doctor Akagi, to see how far he was coming on. He considered feeling put out about that for a second, but he wasn’t exactly surprised. Misato was like that, most of the time. It wasn’t as if she was _always_ sneaking around people, she just…she had an agenda. Most of the people around him did, so he was used to it.

That didn’t stop the clench of annoyance in his gut, though.

He slumped back into his seat after seven spells, legs shaking, and Misato clearly got the message that he was done for the moment, as she calmed down and began to look at him with an unnervingly knowing smile. She almost looked like Kaworu, for a second, but there was none of the gentleness that seemed an intrinsic part of him. Only confidence.

“Why are you doing it, Shinji?”

The question confused him, more than anything. “Doing what?”

“Magic. You can refuse to use it, you know. It’s not something you have to do. And what with how everyone’s going to be at you like rabid dogs, and how you are with attention, I don’t think that you would have chosen to start learning magic without a good reason.”

Shinji didn’t answer. He knew full well why he was doing it. He knew and he was ashamed of the reason because it wasn’t anything as altruistic as ‘I want to save Kaworu’ or ‘I want to continue my mother’s work’: it was just ‘I want to be needed’. So he couldn’t say it.

But Misato was looking at him. Her smile didn’t falter, and there was an iron strength behind it he knew only too well: he’d seen it enough times in their ‘talks’. Staring, smiling, and waiting for him to speak, because that was the best way to pull it out of him, if she was the one doing it. And she was the only one who could do it properly. Or at least, she had been.

But there was no comparison, really. Misato knew what she was doing, and while he could never figure out all her reasoning (and honestly, he wasn’t sure he wanted to, because it was easier to think it was mostly because she cared), they both knew he’d always speak in the end, about _something_. Kaworu just asked, apparently ignorant to how his words made their way peacefully through countless barriers and walls set up to keep Shinji apart, and it worked because he was the right person at the right time with the right smile and the right tilt to his head and because he wasn’t expecting an answer. If he asked, it was for Shinji’s sake, or to bring them closer together. He’d said so himself, when Shinji had once asked during a midnight attack of misanthropy.

And, after so many calming speeches and reassurances of ‘Because I care about you’, ‘Because I want you to be comfortable’, or ‘Because you matter to me’, Misato’s waiting wasn’t enough to extract the truth from Shinji’s shaking hands any longer.

So he diverted her, without quite meaning to: driven by a need to say something to get her eyes off him, he blurted it out. “I met someone.”

The answer seemed to take her by surprise, but she didn’t say so. She just waited for more.

“Someone who…someone who means a lot to me. And they need me to. So I’m learning magic for them,” his voice was quavering with nerves, as if he’d tricked her and was waiting to be called out on it.

But her smile softened. “Who did you meet? Or would you prefer not to say?”

“I’m not sure I should tell you.” It wasn’t a lie: he trusted her more than he did Asuka, but he didn’t trust her superiors, and he didn’t trust Doctor Akagi with the knowledge of Kaworu’s existence in the slightest, if it came down to that. He could only hope Asuka had kept quiet about the whole issue, and it seemed likely she might have: she wouldn’t want to admit defeat by revealing Kaworu before she’d even got started on trying her own experiments, he supposed.

After something that might have been disappointment flashed across Misato’s face, he quickly apologised, startled at himself for not having done it earlier.

“That’s okay. Can you tell me about them?”

“They’re…a good friend. More than I’ve had in a while.” _Ever, actually_.

Misato was smiling wider now, and Shinji finally got the impression that he was seeing her as her, rather than Doctor Akagi’s envoy.

“You’re not in _love_ , are you?” She looked delighted with the idea, and even more so at his sudden spluttering of “M-Miss Misato!”

But, to his relief, she didn’t pry much further than that, instead letting him change the subject to the relatively neutral ‘A-anyway, how’s Asuka getting on?’ (wonderfully in general, terribly on P.R, as usual). He wasn’t sure he’d be comfortable explaining anything more, not when he was so unsure himself. There wasn’t even anything to be unsure _about_ , but simple logic could never be enough to stop Shinji from fretting over anything he could.

And so, by the time Misato realised she was late to her next appointment and had to run out on him with a quick promise to come by again soon, an entirely unwelcome but probably justified feeling of guilt had settled itself in Shinji’s stomach. He knew he had to go and apologise, and while the prospect was terrifying more because he wasn’t sure he’d be able to do it right than any concerns that Kaworu wouldn’t accept it, there was more than a small feeling of hope to the idea. Apologise, work things out, continue as before. It would be simple. And, knowing Shinji’s track record with human interaction, completely impossible.

It was therefore with some relief that he managed to force himself into the library again only to find that Kaworu was limp, eyes closed, and utterly dormant.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't planning on uploading this for a while (until I'd started writing the next chapter), but...
> 
> But anyway, here's the emotional climax. I can't really tell if it's good anymore, I've read over it so many times. Sort of like when you spend ages on a detail of a drawing, get it perfect, then move back and realise that it's at the wrong angle? That kind of feeling.

Shinji was utterly on edge all afternoon (not an unfamiliar state of being for him), periodically peeking back into the library to see if Kaworu had woken up yet. And as the checks grew less frequent, the day wearing on by, he began to feel disheartened. In some ways, even if it was scary, it would have been a lot better to just get it over with, because when Shinji was given time to think about this sort of decision, he could only ever see the holes in it.

He started picking it apart manically. Would Kaworu even want an apology? Was he the type to prefer everyone just forget it had ever happened? And how was Shinji even supposed to apologise? He’d never been good at it before, always stuttering and evading the issue because it was just so _difficult_ to bring up that sort of thing (at least with Asuka, she made it clear whenever she wanted to be apologised to). Apologies were usually so easy and he handed them out liberally as shields against social interaction, but when it came to real, _proper_ apologies, he always overthought things and ruined it. More importantly, would an apology even work?

That was what worried him the most: apologising for his behaviour was good manners and the expected thing to do, but…Even he knew that sometimes, relying on good manners only brought you further away from people.  

It was bad enough that he kept pushing Kaworu away without meaning to, and if it hadn’t been for Kaworu’s patient insistence on staying with him, it would have all broken weeks ago. He didn’t think he’d be able to stand it, if he succeeded in tearing apart the one good relationship he’d built in years.

But why? Why wouldn’t he be able to? Theoretically, it would be completely possible and even desirable for him to just go back to living as he had. He wouldn’t have to keep hiding Kaworu, for a start. And he wouldn’t have to keep worrying about things, like whether he’d said the right amount to keep the conversation going, whether a smile was particularly tired and signalled to him that he’d done something wrong, whether Kaworu was as shockingly dependent on this hesitant, worried little relationship they had…

But he’d also lose the one person in the world who seemed to support him fully, without any of those stupid extra motivations he could never work out or understand, the one person who seemed to like his company beyond short visits (and it had never escaped him how weary Misato looked with his unresponsive answers when she stayed for too long), the one person with whom he seemed able to actually speak properly, without his hateful barriers shooting up and holding him back with a gentle but firm ‘I don’t think you should be saying any more than that, now.’

The only person he could see himself growing used to living with, just because everything was so much _easier_ with someone who accommodated you at every step, and that wasn’t an idea he cared to think about for very long.

Worry matured into the familiar vintage of self-hatred, because Shinji had always been an expert at blaming himself, if nothing else.

And so, pacing around his rooms and feigning passing interest in reading, he learnt that while time passes exceptionally quickly when you’re with someone whose company you enjoy, it passes just as well when you have things to worry about, steadily losing your head in a whirlpool of nagging thoughts and twisted words.

Evening came, and Kaworu still hadn’t woken up.

And Shinji kept telling himself it was _fine_ , it had gone on this long before, but that didn’t stop him going to check that his mother’s magic was still rippling away calmly on Kaworu’s skin.

In the end, he set himself a goal: that he wouldn’t go to sleep before apologising properly, because things would be different in the morning, and he would probably have lost his nerve.

And with that decision made, midnight found him watching the moon through the library windows, measuring out the seconds that slipped by lazily so that he only glanced over at the still-sleeping doll once a minute. He’d calmed down, since the afternoon, no longer accusing himself and plunging into the familiar embrace of self-pity, and he tried in vain to collect his thoughts well enough to practice an apology.

At a quarter to one, there was a small creaking sound from beside him and he whirled round in his seat, hands clenched at the armrests.

Kaworu shook as he raised himself up, his limbs clattering against each other in the daintiest of percussion solos, and slowly his eyes flickered open. They glowed red in the darkness, and for the first time Shinji wondered if they really did _glow_ , not just reflect the moon’s light.

He caught sight of Shinji and seemed startled. Shinji began to regret having turned the lights off, because the situation had to look a lot more sinister than he meant for it to.

But Kaworu greeted him without anything held back. “Hello, Shinji! I’m sorry: I’m afraid I fell asleep again…” and of _course_ he’d apologise for that, like he always did for things that weren’t his fault. “What time is it?”

“Almost one in the morning, I think.” He knew it was: he’d been counting.

Kaworu frowned. “So late? But, if you don’t mind my asking, why are you up?”

“I was…I was waiting for you.”

“Oh! Oh, I’m sorry, really, I didn’t mean to keep you.”

“Please don’t apologise!”

“Ah…alright, then.” He was about to say sorry again, Shinji was sure, but caught himself and smiled gently instead. “Were you waiting for any particular reason?”

And it was odd: from anyone else, Shinji felt sure the question would seem accusatory to him and he’d have to rush to justify himself, but in the room awash in moonlight, facing this extraordinary doll, all he could hear was interest. ‘ _Tell me why you’re here so I might know too, and know you in the bargain_ ’.

As he could have expected, that didn’t make it _easy_ to look Kaworu in the eyes and open himself up. But it was easier.

“I…I wanted to…Recently, my behaviour’s been…I…” He stuttered, like trying to unscrew a decades-old jar and getting nothing but sore hands for his trouble. And he began to panic. It should all have been so simple, but he was messing it up again because he couldn’t say things properly, couldn’t express himself properly because he’d never _had_ to, because he’d never _wanted_ to, because there had never been anyone to open up to before who he thought wouldn’t hurt him, but even though he felt a wavering surety in the idea that Kaworu wouldn’t, he just couldn’t bring himself to say what he needed to, that he was-!

“I’m sorry.” But it was Kaworu who said it, naturally. He smiled apologetically at Shinji’s shock. “I know you said not to say it, but I’m sorry. For insisting you do things in a way you’re not comfortable with. I shouldn’t have, and I’m sorry for it.”

Shinji was unable to speak. It was unfair, he thought, that that was always the way: he couldn’t say what he needed to, and yet Kaworu could say it all with ease, without it ever coming off as nonchalant. Even on the odd occasion he himself had said what he needed to, it had only been thanks to careful, patient prompting.

“I’msorrytoo!” he forced himself to blurt out, all in a jumble. “You were…you were worried, and I didn’t pay any attention, and I’m so, so sorry!”

Kaworu laughed lightly, and settled his hand out on the table nearer Shinji’s side: a casual invitation, no reply necessary, but if one happened to be given, it would be appreciated greatly.

It took Shinji some time, but he did reach out a quivering hand to touch Kaworu’s, not wanting to smother it (because his was three times the size), but just wanting the contact, the warm static of magic on his fingers. But more than that: the warmth of another person, a person who’d reached out for him.

And with that realisation filling him up like syrup, like something rich and strong and so good but so _much_ , he thought it might be worth it to try and push it further. He didn’t know if he trusted himself not to ruin everything, but he thought, with steadily strengthening confidence, he might trust Kaworu enough.

“Why?” His voice cut into the air, sharp and without a stutter, without hesitation. “Why are you so against me-” he stopped himself quickly as it became too harsh, but Kaworu nodded.

“It’s…not something easy to put into words, I think. I’m more comfortable with you taking it slow, I suppose, because there’s less opportunity for things to go wrong. You saw how things got out of hand the first day, remember? I just…I think it would be better to avoid that, at all costs. Because if you get into the habit of going as fast as you can, eventually you’re going to trip and hurt yourself. With magic, that’s especially dangerous.”

“But I need to improve as fast as possible! I need to get to the point where I can fix you!”

“I can wait. Your father’s waited fifteen years: I’m sure he can wait longer too. So why is it that you’re so terrified of slowing down?” Kaworu’s words sliced through his façade.

“I’m not _terrified_ …It’s just, I’d just prefer to get better and better so I can do what you need me to do.” He was skirting around the subject, not saying what he needed to, but something flickered over Kaworu’s expression at his words anyway.

“Shinji…” his voice was soft and heavy, dripping into the dark room and muffling any sharp edges. “Do you worry you’re not worth enough if you haven’t mastered magic?”

A few irregular, startled breaths passed. Shinji was caught, waiting for the rush of relief or the clutch of guilt around his chest because he _hadn’t had to say it_ , Kaworu had just known, but what was he supposed to _do_?

Stuck for what to say, he tried to brush it off with an embarrassed laugh while staring fixatedly at the carpet. “Well, I mean…there’s not much else, right? Nobody really needs me for anything else, so…so…” His hands clenched into shaking fists, making the table one of them rested on shudder. “Of course I need to prove myself through magic! Whether I get hurt or not, it doesn’t matter, I just need to be useful, don’t I?”

He waited for an answer, but he was already certain there was no way Kaworu could disagree with him. At the end of the day, everyone just wanted what was best for themselves, so even he, no matter how kind and accommodating and gentle he’d been, would have to admit that Shinji was right. He couldn’t keep on with the sugary words, with the unprecedented kindness forever. All fairytales had to end.

But no clock struck midnight. It was too late for that, anyway.

“Oh, Shinji...” He sounded about to cry, and Shinji whipped his head round in surprise, staring wide-eyed as Kaworu clung to his hand, gazing back with hurt in his eyes. “That’s not it at _all_. I’ve never once thought that way, and I never will. You might not ever get a proper grasp on your powers and you still wouldn’t be _useless_ ,” he said the word with horror. “People need things from each other, it’s true, but those things are not always material, and you’re not a waste just because you can’t be of service to other people in this one way. The people around you stay with you for other reasons, and either way, your sense of self-worth shouldn’t have to rest on what other people think of you, nor on your magical ability.”

“But it _does_ …” Shinji breathed, completely disbelieving. “There’s nothing else that’s worth anything in me…”

“But there _is_ , you just can’t see it.”

“You’re wrong! I don’t have any talents, I’m no good at speaking with people, I don’t have anything but my blood and this is the one way I can use it so people will actually like me!”

“People can like you for other reasons, Shinji. You’re more than just your blood and your parents’ legacy.”

“That’s not true, I…I don’t have anything else to offer.”

“You have so much more!”

“Like what?!” His voice broke, cracking to show the tears he was swallowing back. “Nobody even enjoys being around me, so if I can’t do this then I’m as pathetic and useless as I was before.”

“I enjoy being around you,” Kaworu said, but he looked lost, frightened as he watched Shinji blink back tears.

“ _Why?_ ”

“Because I love you. I…I thought you knew.”

Needless to say, Shinji had not known, hadn’t even thought to imagine, and could summon up no better response than to gape.

Kaworu, only slightly less collected than usual, tried to salvage the situation. “Everything about you is so precious to me, every moment I spend with you too, and I just can’t help but love you. Even more than that, I feel a connection with your blood, and it’s difficult to tear myself away from it sometimes.”

Shinji’s pounding heart felt like it had stopped, and though his mind tried to school itself with ‘You should have expected this was all just because of your mother again’, it didn’t stop the lump rising in his throat once more.

Kaworu noticed. “It’s not like that!” he exclaimed hurriedly, shaking his head. “Don’t think it’s just because of your blood: it’s because of _you_. It’s because of your personality, your heart, your struggles, your words, your actions, it’s because of you and only you!” He watched Shinji earnestly, apologies passing unspoken.

But Shinji didn’t know what to do. The idea was so unreal: it was so unimaginable that anyone could _love_ him that he could scarcely believe it. And, with a bitter jolt of realisation, he knew that he couldn’t possibly thrive in a relationship…could he? It was impossible, it could never happen: he’d just mess it all up and ruin everything and never say what was needed, never say that he loved him back…It wasn’t even as if he recognised love in himself at all. How could he possible reciprocate if he couldn’t do that much?!

Despite all Shinji’s hurried, disbelieving thoughts, Kaworu changed his expression to his usual gentle smile and tried to calm him down. “Nothing’s changed, Shinji. I’ve loved you for a while: nothing has to change at all. Just feel safe in the fact that I do love you, that I trust you and believe in you, and try to take courage in that.”

Shinji hoped he’d be forgiven for nodding, for falling to weakness and clutching onto Kaworu’s warmth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "... his limbs clattering against each other in the daintiest of percussion solos..." is officially my favourite line in this whole story. 
> 
> After this comes the build-up to the actual climax of the story, and I'll be changing some tags and warnings as appropriate, just to let you know (I doubt it's going to become E or anything, though).


	9. Chapter 9

Shinji didn’t have an especially sunny relationship with mornings (or times of day in general), but for perhaps the first time in his life, he woke up motivated. He also woke up with a stiff neck and muscles aching in protest at his having slept in a hard library chair, but the lack of that early morning ‘trying to think of something that’s worth opening my eyes for’ limbo made up for it. Almost excited, he looked over at where Kaworu sat propped up, eyes closed. They’d worked out early on that Kaworu could ‘shut down’, as it were, and experience at will something like normal sleep that he’d wake up from easily, but it always looked so much like the other, deeper type of sleep that Shinji couldn’t help but worry.

With fingers shaking in excitement rather than stress, he reached out to the doll’s shoulder. It only took a touch, but that was all it ever took: the call of Yui’s blood was as strong a wake-up call as one could wish for. Kaworu’s eyes fluttered open and his face broke into a warm smile without so much as a yawn.

“Good morning,” he said, and he said it like it was true, like everything _was_ good: good and hopeful and full of promise. And Shinji could believe him.

“Good morning,” he said back, smiling, but shyly because this kind of morning greeting just didn’t feel like something normal people did (Kaworu being exempt from that group, obviously), but Kaworu’s smiled widened and everything fitted into place. A few seconds of fuzzy feelings later, Shinji remembered that his back really was killing him, and decided it would probably be a decent time to get up properly.

It was all well and good for Kaworu to say that nothing would have to change after his confession, but he’d truly been wrong, Shinji felt. The air was different, the atmosphere between them was different, but nothing felt _difficult_. Shinji had been expecting difficult: he’d anticipated long periods of silence, more awkwardness than even he was used to, bouts of self-hatred flashing through his mind at the worst moments as every silence meant Kaworu might be growing bored of him, but none of it had come true. Instead of that – instead of constant self-analyses because really, what on earth was there to love about him? – it felt like he was bubbling up with energy and that if he wasn’t careful he might explode with it, and yet there was always this safety blanket of ‘I love you’ waiting below.

He felt happy.

Even the usually sobering prospect of magic practice didn’t push down his mood because he felt so powerful, as if his magic was just waiting to billow from within him and change the world. He could do it! He knew he could do anything!

Kaworu smiled at him (with only the slightest cracks to show his worry) from the desk as Shinji got ready.

“What are you going to start with today?”

“Um…I was thinking I’d like to put the door back.”

“I’m fairly sure all the splinters got taken away, though.”

“I can just make a new one.”

Kaworu blinked, but whatever came over him passed quickly. “Alright. Are you going to change the design? I think something with more twists would be nice, seeing as you’ve already customised the room itself.”

Shinji nodded, almost enthusiastically, and walked to the doorway. Reaching to access his magic came naturally; rather, it burst out to meet him, smothering his mind with a force he’d not felt before. But it was comfortable. Comforting. It was like that fabled feeling of ‘becoming one’ with your magic that he’d been so afraid of before, but it was coming to greet him this time. Though he was still caught up in the magic and was barely aware of his surroundings, he spared a quick glance over at Kaworu, who was still smiling calmly, encouragingly at him, but it felt so _different_ now that he knew.

There was another press of magic against his mind and it was slightly impatient now, wanting to be used, so he tried to concentrate. He was about to start creating a door (one with twists, of course) when something stopped him.

A pulse was pushing against his hands from the doorway, growing deeper and hotter with each beat: it felt like the wood was beginning to encase his hands and he tried to rip them back but found he couldn’t. He couldn’t move at all. It was going wrong: it was all going wrong, and a slither of dread worked its way down his spine. He’d been so stupid to think that a mood he was never in usually was natural, that anything could go so well for him, because here was the oak-hard proof that he was destined to ruin everything. He couldn’t even open his eyes because this _thing_ inside the wood was screaming for his attention as it drummed its way into his ears and nose and mouth, a shuddering beat resonating down his throat. With fear, he realised it really was calling him, with a call he could feel in his bones but would never be able to express in words. Its humming became a deafening buzz through his body, pounding, hunting, _searching_ -

And then it found what it was looking for. His blood grew hot, so much so that he would have screamed if his mouth would just open, but only for an instant, and then the wall collapsed.

It was like reliving the same mistake again. He’d become too cocky, gone too far, and everything had blown up in his face in a mess of dust and broken wood, but this time, even as he gulped back tears at how Kaworu called his name (frantically, desperately), he couldn’t understand _why_.

The dust cleared, eventually, and Shinji, on his knees with his hands over his eyes protectively, felt Kaworu at his side, pulling his clothes urgently.

“Shinji, are you alright? What happened?”

“I…I don’t know.” He looked down at a face contorted with worry and guilt seeped into his stomach. “I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry…”

“Shinji…” Kaworu hugged his side and made soothing sounds, always repeating that it wasn’t Shinji’s fault, but the damage was already done. The brief appearance of Shinji’s self-confidence was short-lived and he was struggling to even raise his head. It was too hard: he’d got it wrong again, even though he’d felt it was meant to be, and it just didn’t feel like there was any coming back from that.

Kaworu’s gentle circling on his lower back stopped. “Shinji…look.”

It was an impossible request, but he tried anyway, and managed to lift his head just enough to see the entirely unfamiliar stone wall in front of him.

“What…what’s that?”

“A wall, it looks like,” Kaworu said, and Shinji couldn’t help but smile at that one. Kaworu beamed in triumph and let himself be picked up as Shinji got to his feet.

It was, indeed, a wall. It was in the same place as the wooden one had been, ending at the still-empty doorway, but, oddly enough, its other side in the adjoining room was still wooden. It was old, too: the mortar was crumbling in places and the stones were scratched and chipped.

“Did you make this by mistake?” Kaworu asked after some minutes of careful and fruitless inspection.

“I…I don’t think so. I don’t think you can just make something by mistake like that, and I didn’t feel anything this big in my mind…There was just…” he trailed off.

Kaworu made a prompting noise when Shinji didn’t elaborate.

“Ah, there was just this…pulse-thing. It felt like it was in the wall, and it sort of connected with me. Kind of.” He left out the pain because really, there was no need to go talking about that.

“That’s strange.”

“Very.”

But they couldn’t come to much more conclusion than that until Shinji walked along to where the bookcases were.

“That’s…that’s definitely a door, right?”

Kaworu nodded. “Do you suppose it goes to the next room?”

“Unlikely, isn’t it?”

Kaworu nodded again. It wasn’t that type of door. It was huge, reaching above the bookcases (hence how they’d seen it), made of an unpolished, dark wood, and everything about it said ‘ominous’. So, naturally, Shinji put Kaworu down on the table again and start to push the bookcases out of the way with many a collapse of books onto the floor in the process, to the point where he just gave in and worked some lattice-like caging over the front to keep them in.

In its full glory, the door was even more eerie than before. They looked up at it, at its smooth wooden beams and thick iron handles, and it was immediately obvious to both that they had to go in. It wasn’t a choice: there was a pull coming from the door that both of them could feel, and neither could deny. It wasn’t even difficult to pull it open, despite its apparent weight, and inside there was nothing but darkness for a few seconds before lamps began lighting themselves, revealing a short passageway through into a much larger room that couldn’t possibly exist on the physical reverse side of the wall. Clutching Kaworu closer to him, Shinji walked inside and shut the door behind him, hand resting for a second on the scratched, gouged surface on the inside of the wood.

Kaworu’s eyes widened as Shinji walked into what seemed to be the main room: a giant space filled up with countless shelves and cupboards and desks so that it never had the chance to feel too spacious. There were a few doors leading off to different sides, but Shinji didn’t have the time to pay attention to them before Kaworu sucked in a breath and began to strain against his arms.

“K-Kaworu? What is it?”

The doll furrowed his forehead, troubled, eyes darting around the room uneasily. “This is her workshop,” he said after a while, finally looking up into Shinji’s eyes.

“Oh.” There wasn’t that much else to say. It made perfect sense, so Shinji just surveyed the room again with the new information: this was where his legendary mother had worked.

It was as neat as he could have expected, and despite the years that had gone by since it was last used, there were no signs of aging or dust. Everything looked exactly as Yui must have left it, even, Shinji found out as he walked closer, down to the splatters of dried blood all over the floor and up the sides of the walls.

He stood stock-still, eyes raking across the damage. There was a clear trail of blood to one of the doors, smeared all along the paving stones of the floor, and even bloody handprints along the way.

“Are you alright?” Kaworu asked characteristically, but his question was as hollow as his eyes as he too stared down, completely transfixed.

“Y-you said…that there was so much blood…I…didn’t…”

“I was locked up at the time. I didn’t realise it was this much either…”

Shinji pulled him up to eye level, hands shaking. “How?! How did this happen?! You were here, you had to have seen something!” His gaze slipped down again to the mess all around the room and he gulped heavily, a wave of nausea coming over him. “W-what _happened_ here…?”

“I don’t know,” and he sounded sincere. Just as horrified as Shinji was. “Whatever it was, it happened years ago, more than a decade ago.”

“It doesn’t _feel_ that way…”

“No, it doesn’t…”

It took him a while to realise over the shaking of his own hands, but Kaworu was trembling too craning his head back to look at the ground, joints squeaking in protest.

Then Shinji realised how _quiet_ it was in the room. There were none of the familiar clocks ticking on, none of the creaks from the house’s beams as it settled, none of the distant sounds of servants moving on different floors. It felt so otherworldly that Shinji had to look back to check, but the door was still behind him, sturdy and looming as ever. Appropriate, somehow, that his mother’s rooms were so spooky.

That thought brought him back to his senses. This was what he’d been searching for (sort of – in the long run, he _supposed_ he’d been searching for it, but he hadn’t been actively looking or anything), and he couldn’t just run away at the sight of it. These rooms held what he needed, so he had to move forwards.

As usual, it was Kaworu who prompted him. “Do you think we should look around? If you’re comfortable to, I mean.”

“Are _you_ comfortable to?”

“I’ll be fine.” But he still held onto Shinji’s hand tighter than necessary, still looked around the room as if he was expecting something to come roaring out at them any second.

“T-to start with, should we check some of the doors?” Shinji said, as if voicing everything would make it less threatening. He walked towards one across the room – deliberately staying clear of the one the blood trails went to – but Kaworu’s cold touch on his hand stopped him.

“I don’t think you should,” he said, staring wide-eyed at the door. “Yui was a powerful witch, so…there are probably very dangerous things around here.”

“O-okay…but, what if the work we need is in there?”

“Then we can search in there later!” His eyes still had a hint of wildness to them, fear resting in their red depths. “But for now, let’s look _here_. Where we know it’s safe, to an extent. Please.”

Unnerved, Shinji just nodded and turned around. There were several desks, each covered with piles of paper and books, pens and ink lying around arbitrarily.

“Should we just…?” he trailed off.

“Start from one end, I suppose.” Now that they’d turned back to what was known and comfortable (‘safe’), he’d calmed down, almost back to exuding peace again.

Shinji nodded and started walking towards one of the desks, ducking past a set of shelves that overhung a good foot into the room, when he heard the faint sound of a voice calling his name.

He and Kaworu froze.

“We should probably-” Kaworu started, trailing off into a worried expression.

“Definitely.”

Still carrying the doll, Shinji rushed for the door and pressed his ear to it, making sure the caller wasn’t nearby. He didn’t hear anything, so, as Kaworu climbed up onto the back of his neck to give him use of both hands, he swung the doors open and rushed out, closing them behind him as quietly as one _can_ close doors that looked like they could hold back dragons, and hurriedly pushed the bookcase back over the door. Then, darting out of the library doorway, he reached around to hold Kaworu in his arms again (Kaworu putting on his wonderful impression of an inanimate object) and hesitantly called out, “Yes?”

Fuyutsuki whirled around from peering into the bedroom. To his credit, he barely even looked surprised: not at the sudden appearance, not at how ruffled Shinji’s clothes were, not at Kaworu’s place in his arms.

“Good morning, Ikari. I trust you’re well? The commander wishes to know how you’re progressing.”

Shinji struggled for an answer, because there was no _way_ he was going to say he’d found his mother’s workrooms. Fuyutsuki waited, but on Fuyutsuki it never felt like waiting. More like he was just standing there, content, while things moved on around him.

“I’m…I’m coming along well…”

“Have you come any closer to finding your mother’s work?”

Shinji might have been mistaken, but for a second he thought he saw genuine interest, even hope in the old man’s expression. He shook his head and it died.

“Very well: I’ll inform your father. Before I go, however, this came for you,” he walked over to the table where a small white envelope lay, and picked it up to give it to Shinji. With a small bow, he took his leave.

Shinji and Kaworu watched him go, waited a few seconds to be safe, and then Shinji retreated back to the library.

“That was close…”

“Perhaps we should leave the doors open next time?”

“That would probably make them more obvious, though.” Shinji sat down in his usual chair, waited for Kaworu to clamber up to the side-table next to it, and began to open the letter. He already knew it was from Asuka. There was no mistaking the handwriting because he could feel the dismissiveness, the brashness of each stroke just from looking at it. And, sure enough, it was an invitation (for lack of a better word, but there really ought to be one when it came to Asuka’s ‘invitations’ that were more like thinly veiled threats) to go and visit her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this one took longer than usual....I really wasn't sure of a good cut-off point so the ending doesn't feel like an ending, but...whatever, I guess...onto writing more Asuka...


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things haven't been great recently so I haven't been able to write as much as I'd like and it looks like that might continue for a bit. Regardless, it's not as if there'll be HUGE periods of hiatus or anything: updates will just be less frequent than what I did at the start.
> 
> Anyway, have some heavy emotional stuff.

Since his confession, Kaworu had become a lot more…mobile, now happier to sit on Shinji’s shoulders than to be carried around in his arms constantly as if he really were a doll. Shinji had been a bit taken aback at first, unused to having his arms used as a climbing frame, but for the most part he’d come around to it, even enjoying the contact and the closeness (and the way his heart sped up just a fraction when he felt Kaworu’s small body climbing over him, trusting him unquestioningly).

It was only upon seeing Asuka’s not-at-all concealed eye-roll when she let them in and Kaworu could move as he liked again that he realised maybe it _was_ a little weird to have Kaworu’s arms clasped around his neck. But Asuka didn’t say anything and Shinji didn’t know what to say, so he just followed her long, heavy strides, pitying her worn-down carpet and the creaking floorboards as they passed over them.

She led them into her drawing room this time, gesturing to a small table among teetering stacks of books surrounded by sketched-on paper and miscellaneous charts and diagrams. To Shinji’s surprise, there were three chairs, one of them with a plumped-up cushion on it. Still feeling some attachment to his nose in its non-broken state, he decided not to say a thing about the uncharacteristic thoughtfulness and just sat down, lowering a shoulder so Kaworu could hop onto the pillow. Asuka sat across from them and her hair looked on fire in the light that came streaming through flowerbox-lined windows, her head surrounded by a halo of flickering dust lit up by the beams. There was already a cafetiere and cups on the table, and as she poured the coffee (including a half cup for Kaworu), she barked out a contemptuous laugh.

“Seems you two are still revoltingly close. Got any further in finding Mummy’s work?”

Shinji took his cup with a forced smile and comforted himself with the knowledge that she was probably just lonely and would get over the worst of her bite after a while. “No. What about you? You were planning to do something, weren’t you?”

“I’ve made progress.” She relaxed back into her chair and drank. “I’m getting closer to resuscitation potions, at least. But,” she said with a dramatic, sarcastic sigh, “it seems that potions alone can’t create life. How _useful_ for you that you chose to specialise in something as practical as shape-changing, huh?”

“Miss Misato told you?”

“Of course Misato told me, why wouldn’t she?” she snapped back.

Shinji shrugged, breaking eye contact. “At least you’ve made a start.”

She seemed to agree with that, nodding in a bored way. “But it’s so annoying! If it was just creating life then that would be fine: god, even the most inexperienced of witches can summon up a measly plant or an insect or two. But no, you’ve got to work and work at creating a damned consciousness. Do you have any idea how frustrating that is? There are so many layers, and it’s completely impossible to do it with just one discipline: I’ve looked into it and you’d have to be a genius at so many types of magic just to get started!” She pouted in Kaworu’s direction as he took a tentative sip of coffee and then tried not to heave, setting the cup down hurriedly.

Shinji made a vaguely sympathetic noise, hoping she’d keep ranting without him actually having to put in any effort.

Kaworu, as yet unversed in Asuka’s ways, interrupted her silence. “Would you like to take a look at how I’m made up? Perhaps it could give you an idea?”

Asuka sniffed dismissively at the offer, tossing her hair. “What, and degrade myself by using Yui’s work to get started? Like hell. I’ll do it by myself and I’ll do it better.”

Raising his cup to his mouth, Shinji hummed some sort of response and Asuka glared daggers at him.

“You’re not even listening, are you? Honestly, I try and have a serious conversation on creating life with you and you just act like a complete _idiot_ : I don’t even know why I put up with you!”

“You don’t have to,” Shinji said sulkily.

“So what, I can just leave you to your doll and be done with you? You’d love that, wouldn’t you?” She was laughing: a perverse, forced sound. “Finally, the great misanthrope could be left all on his own to lament his life and how he’s been shunned by the world! But isn’t that what you do already? Just watching all those horrid clocks tick by, wanting to end your fucking life? Would you be happier then?! I’m not surprised you don’t care to talk about making up a consciousness when you don’t even seem to understand how to talk to people!”

“I do know how!” Shinji shouted back, but even he cringed at how broken his voice sounded, at how weak his words felt slipping through his teeth.

“Really?” she scoffed. “Because nodding to servants and blandly answering Misato’s questions is ‘talking’, right? No wonder you like that doll so much: it probably has about as many human emotions as you do.”

“Would you stop calling him an ‘it’?!”

“Why?” They had both stood up, hands on the table and glaring at each other, though it was clear to all that Asuka was the one with the power and ferocity behind her, that Shinji’s arms were already unstable.

“Because he’s a person, that’s why! He can feel just as much as humans can, so treat him like one!”

“That’s stupid.” With a final wrinkle of her nose, Asuka sat down and crossed her legs, watching as Shinji hesitantly took a seat too. Her fire was gone, replaced with a resigned indignation that wrote itself into the way she held her head, the way her mouth was set. “I’ll allow that Yui managed to create a living creature and I’ll allow that she made it think for itself, but how the hell do you want me to swallow the idea that she created emotions? That would involve creating a whole personality, and while it’s not like it’s easy to set up a system for individual thought, emotions are just a pain in the ass to even _think_ about coding into something! That thing,” she pointed at Kaworu (who had very wisely been keeping his mouth shut the whole time), “cannot feel, and if it seems like it can, it’s just another elaborate display of Yui’s goddamn genius, isn’t it? It’s all fake.”

“You…you don’t know anything! Not about him, not about me, not about this whole situation. Why do you have to act like you know everything all the time?!” And sure, his words came out strongly, but he could already feel the fingers of doubt slip into his mind, whispering sweet ‘I told you so’s and ‘none of it was real’s. He flicked his eyes to the side, but Kaworu didn’t smile reassuringly, didn’t put a hand on his: the doll’s eyes were wide, hauntingly so, as he watched Asuka.

“I know a damn sight more than you do, _idiot_ ,” Asuka spat.

“Not…not about this…” He felt ready to run and hide, and somehow Asuka saw this. Unusually, she took pity on him.

Sighing heavily, she scratched the back of her head and closed her eyes in complete exasperation from dealing with him. “Fine. Let’s say I don’t: let’s say that _maybe_ Yui was able to fabricate some creature from scratch that _somehow_ managed to develop proper emotions. Why the fuck does it matter to you so much? What,” she grinned, “are you worried that friends don’t count when all their emotions are fake?” At that thought she laughed properly, ignoring the flush that ran across Shinji’s face, the unease in the set of his shoulders, the way guilt was slowly churning his insides apart.

But something had changed in the air and Asuka stopped laughing to smile at him, haughtily but not totally malicious. “Maybe you should just consider it a win that you made any new friends, knowing what you’re like. Come on, stop looking like I just stepped all over you! God, you’re annoying when you get like this, you know?”

_Well, maybe you should stop making me like this_ , Shinji thought about saying but he didn’t have the fight left in him. He stared sullenly at the table, heart racing with subdued panic. Beside him, Kaworu was just as motionless, but there were no signs that he’d fallen to sleep. He was just still.

“How’d Daddy take it?” Asuka asked suddenly.

It was so out of the blue that Shinji lifted his head, whipped out of sour self-pity. “Huh?”

“He’s got to have found out that you’re doing magic now, right? So how’d he take it?”

“Oh, um…he…he didn’t mind. He told me to continue my mother’s work. Apparently he always knew.” _Apparently he never cared_.

“That’s not surprising. Do you know what he wants?”

“What he wants?”

Asuka clicked her tongue and rolled her eyes, seemingly appalled at how slow Shinji was being. “This is _your father_ we’re talking about! That man doesn’t do a thing unless he’s got a plan in mind: of course he’s got ulterior motives to just letting his precious little boy stretch his wings a bit.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Yeah, but you don’t think about a lot of things. Do I have to do all of this for you? You’re going to end up playing his game before you know it, and that’s never a good thing, come on!”

It wasn’t that he didn’t agree with her, but Shinji was feeling too tired, too fed up with everything at this point to say so, and just shrugged.

Asuka sighed, but it wasn’t dramatic or put-on this time. “God knows I’m not going to interfere, but just make sure you know what you’re doing, would you? It’d be just like you to have everything ruined, or to get totally manipulated because you weren’t paying attention. And hell, I really don’t want things to go to your father’s plan, whatever it is. So be careful! And you,” she directed this at Kaworu, “keep an eye out too.”

He still seemed out of it (Shinji could relate), but somehow managed a ‘Yes, Miss Asuka’. That satisfied her enough to nod and, mercifully, change the subject to a rant on the latest scandal she’d caused which was really not her fault, because since when was it her fault that grown men had egos so delicate they couldn’t even accept when someone was clearly better than them without crying for punishment?

Shinji listened, all the while trying to control the dread still seeping through his veins.

 

“She was wrong,” Kaworu said the minute – the second – they got back to Shinji’s rooms.

“About what?” As if he didn’t know, hadn’t been thinking about it all the way back, hadn’t been sneaking glances at the doll’s impassive face the whole time to try and get an answer from glassy eyes and inhuman skin.

“My emotions,” Kaworu said quickly, almost out of breath. “I can feel…I know I can.”

Neither of them looked at the other.

Kaworu tried again. “If it feels like I can, then isn’t that enough? Emotions, a conscience, memories, personality: those and so much more are what makes up a human, right? And I can feel them!”

“Why do you sound so uncertain?”

“How am I supposed to sound certain about this?”

Shinji sat down heavily onto his bed, bending over until he could rest his elbows on his thighs, hands carded into his hair. “It’s fine,” he said in a monotone voice.

“It’s not.” Kaworu moved down onto the bed next to him. “I’ve been so worried, all this time, that I’m not as valid as you, or that my emotions don’t matter as much because of how I was created, and everything Miss Asuka said…”

“Asuka’s very good at making you feel terrible. Call it a special skill of hers.” He couldn’t help how bitter he sounded.

“Ah! I’m sorry,” Kaworu said in a small voice. “I didn’t…I forgot she said things to hurt you too.”

_There he goes again_. “It’s fine,” and Shinji meant it this time. “I’ve heard it before.” With a struggle, he managed to turn his head round to meet Kaworu’s eyes. “Did…did what she say really affect you?”

Kaworu nodded. “I’m sorry…I know she was probably just trying to make herself feel better, I know she was probably just trying to make sense of everything, but…”

He looked so small, so vulnerable, and Shinji couldn’t think of a thing to say.

Kaworu got there first as he always did. With a smile and a shake of his head, he looked up. “I shouldn’t get so worried about something like this, sorry. I’ll just-”

“If it worries you then talk to me about it.” Panicked, Shinji found himself repeating something Misato had told him a long time ago because his own words just wouldn’t come out.

“I…I don’t want to trou-”

“ _Please_.”

Kaworu blinked before nodding slowly. “What she said…um, it’s been worrying me for a long time. It’s usually easy to forget that I’m so different, but then I fall asleep, or you use magic on me and I can feel _everything_ , everything I’m made up of. And even then, I don’t think it would matter, if it was just me. I…I’m sure of what I feel. I _know_ I can feel, and that it’s not fake to me. But I worry about you.”

_Why can’t you only worry about yourself for once?! Why do you always have to keep an eye out for me, for my feelings?!_ But Shinji kept quiet, ignoring the treacherous undercurrent of pleasure he felt at being so cared for.

“I know that your relationships with other people aren’t magnificent, and I know that you’re trying to rely on the knowledge that I love you as strength when you can’t find it for yourself, and…and I worry that you think I’m just created to feel this way. I worry that if you think like that, you’ll start to believe no one can love you.”

“What if you’re the only one who can?”

“That’s not true: that could _never_ be true. There are so many people in this world that it’s impossible only one of them could love you! But…say we pretend it is true, would it matter?”

Shinji thought about it. His mind was never clear at the best of times and it was like climbing a hill backwards to try and tell people what he was feeling if he _did_ eventually string it into words, and on top of that he felt repelled by the question. He didn’t want to think about it, not when he already had a neat, fixed concept of ‘nobody loves me, nobody can love me, and I cannot give love in return’.

He finally came up with, “I…don’t know. I’ve never felt loved. It’s difficult to imagine it, even though you…confessed…But what if my mother did create you to love me or something? Isn’t that horrible?! Wouldn’t you hate it?!”

“No.” He looked genuinely puzzled. “How could I hate it when it feels so right to love you?”

“B-but…but you…”

“Shinji, I’m happy when I’m with you. I love being with you, and while I can understand if you think that my love means less because of what I am, that doesn’t mean I feel it any less. I’m sure of that.”

There were so many things Shinji could say. ‘ _You’ve never really met anyone but me_ ’. ‘ _You’re only attracted to my blood_ ’. ‘ _You only feel that way because_ …’ But he said none, just felt his face scrunch up as he tried not to cry, and choked, “It’s not less because of what you are! I don’t even deserve it!”

Kaworu moved closer to his thigh, snuggling up against his arm. “Shall we agree to disagree on that?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I keep worrying that I write Asuka too mean. I'm trying to strike up a balance between what she is and what Shinji sees her as, but who knows if it's working?


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the writer's block I feared never actually came, and I've even got the next chapter written now, so that'll be up in a day or two.

They did eventually make it back into Yui’s workshop, over an hour later. Predictably, nothing had changed since the quick run-through they’d given the place after Fuyutsuki had left the day before. The whole room seemed immortalised, unchanging, so Shinji supposed it was fitting.

“There…there really are a lot of books…” Shinji sighed, in an attempt to make conversation as much as anything else. The task felt too daunting, too strange to actually have it set out in front of him after weeks of thinking they’d never even _find_ the workshop, but Kaworu hopped onto the desk and took his hand, leading him to the pile of notebooks they’d already sorted.

“Then let’s get started,” the doll said sunnily, as if he hadn’t emptied all of his worries into Shinji’s unworthy arms just that day, as if he hadn’t reached out blindly, trusting Shinji to be strong enough to support him. Shinji wondered how he did it.

To their relief, the notebooks were easy to read. Yui had been a born academic, clearly, and every page had neat, paragraphed notes with friendly-looking arrows and small diagrams. There were even little messages in the margins, things like ‘there’s no way this could work’, ‘see a couple of pages back for more detail’, or ‘best not to mention this to the geezers’, and Shinji found himself smiling more than once as they skim-read through the first few books. It felt like listening to his mother as a person, feeling her spirit with all its dazzling personality and character rather than as the ghost that had loomed over him his whole life. It felt comforting.

Even so, after the first two notebooks didn’t even mention the slightest investigation on creating life, he and Kaworu took a new book each and sped up the search (although it was impossible to turn a completely blind eye to the charm of some of Yui’s sketches and enthusiastic messages to herself). Finally, after they’d gone through seven different notebooks, Kaworu came across what they’d been looking for. The new book was thicker than the others, stuffed with messier notes and loose sheets of paper with keywords and lists scrawled on them, and they flicked through it eagerly.

Shinji was fascinated by it. The idea started off so hesitant: a small message in the margin of some other project here, a little drawing of a humanoid there, and then they turned a page to find ‘To Create a Person’ written in bold, excited capitals spanning the width of the paper. What followed were mostly lists of things Yui had tried to keep in mind: lists upon lists of things she had decided she needed to spin together to create some semblance of a consciousness, and soon the notes took off into abstract sketches to accompany them.

“Funny way of keeping notes, isn’t it?” Kaworu said after it became apparent that those sketches – swirls and lines and shapes wrapping together the odd word or two – would make up the majority of the book.

“I…can read it, though.” Shinji said it uncertainly, but the feeling of recognition he got when he looked at the pages was undeniable.

“Really?”

“Mm…It’s…I think it’s a representation of what she felt when she cast magic. It’s sort of the same for me. I see it the same.”

“Do you think you’d be able to recreate these spells, then? Just from this?”

Shinji nodded. “I don’t think I’d need to, though: these make up the groundwork, and that’s already finished in you. We should probably flip ahead to later pages.” He was reluctant to say it, though. He felt at home, reading his mother’s notes, understanding it all (no matter how convoluted and confusing they occasionally were), and recognising it in a way that felt deeper than simple understanding.

But Kaworu nodded and turned the pages quicker, stopping when the sketches changed suddenly. He drew his hand back from the page suddenly, and the paper wavered in the air a moment before settling down, proudly showing off pictures of blades, fangs, retractable spines, elongated nails sharpened to points, and, as Kaworu hurriedly turned more pages over (as if there had been some mistake), as many weapons in as many forms as you could possibly desire.

He stepped away from the book as if he’d been burned, and Shinji started to page through it instead.

“What _is_ this?” he wondered aloud. “You…you don’t have anything like this, do you?”

Kaworu shook his head, but his eyes were still fixed on the book, shining in terror.

“Was she trying to weaponise you?” Shinji asked, but he didn’t really expect a reply and he kept looking through the carefully, lovingly detailed sketches. Eventually the designs stopped being so dramatically different, and some more clearly defined designs appeared with notes and explanations to match. There was a whole array of them: a concealed gem that would let out a beam of destructive light (deemed too energy-consuming and far too difficult to create); arms that could melt and reform into lances or long strip-like blades, or (further into the design process) lightening-like whips; skin that could dissolve into some sort of corrosive acid, or into a parasitic mass that could assimilate other creatures; and through it all, notes on how Yui’s blood would have to be used to kick-start the process and to control it.

“This is horrible,” he said finally, turning back to look at Kaworu. “You’re…you’re sure you don’t have any of this?”

“I’m sure,” Kaworu said, his voice just a little breathier than normal. Something twisted in Shinji’s gut at the sound.

“Then maybe it’s alright: maybe these were just ideas that she never got around to. I’m certainly not going to try them out, so don’t worry. Please? I…I’m just going to fix you.”

Kaworu seemed to perk up at that. “Yes! We should look for that!” He rushed to the book and slid the pages over hastily until they returned to the safety of swirls and shapes. “There should be something here, shouldn’t there?”

Shinji nodded, a little uneasy now, but gratefully accepted the change of subject. “I guess I’ll just read through it and check what you’ve already got? Is…is that okay?”

“I don’t think we should stay in here too long,” Kaworu said firmly, though he quickly changed his tone to normal, backtracking. “How about we take the book to the library and do it there instead?”

“I’m not sure I’d like to run the risk of someone finding it, though…”

“But we can’t stay in here.”

“Why not?” It felt unreal, seeing Kaworu this stressed, this uncomfortable, and no logic or reason in the world could have calmed Shinji down from the worry snaking through him. Having normality stripped from him tended to do that.

“It’s dangerous,” Kaworu said after an interminable pause. “Your mother was powerful and she had a lot of spells and projects in progress at the same time. We can’t say for sure that they aren’t still around, probably all the more potent for being left alone so long. So _please_ don’t stay here too long. Please don’t come here without me. I know I can’t be much help, but _please_. I couldn’t bear it if you-” but at that moment his pleading eyes went dull and his tensed body collapsed to the desk as he fell asleep. Shinji rushed to pick him up, straightening him out even though he had no apparent bones to break or muscles to stretch.

He stood there, watching Kaworu, a cacophony of unpleasant thoughts barging into his mind and vying for attention. It was all so wrong, all so unexpected, and he didn’t know what to do. Before he’d realised it, Kaworu’s smile had become another ticking clock in his life: another constant he could rely on to keep him tied down, and the idea of something he couldn’t even begin to understand taking that away…it left a bitter taste down his throat. Wasn’t anything sacred, then? Wasn’t he allowed to have anything for himself? Wasn’t he allowed to…

With a start, he realised he’d been falling into self-pity again, when if he thought about it (clinging to what sense he could muster), nothing had changed.

Nothing had changed at all. It was fine.

Kaworu had worries too, had insecurities too. Wasn’t that what being human was all about? If anything, it was Shinji’s fault for not realising fully before (no, no, bad thoughts, don’t go sidling off into self-pity and self-centred hatred _again_ ). There was nothing to be afraid of. Was there? He didn’t want to think about it. But Kaworu had told him he loved him, Kaworu had offered his heart to him without hesitation, and because of that, it was the least Shinji could do to try and trust the doll in return. It might feel like he was only opening himself up to be hurt, but…he had to try…right?

He gulped down a breath. Right. It was going to be fine. If anyone deserved his trust – full, with nothing held back – it was Kaworu.

Shinji hugged the doll tighter to his chest and walked out of the workshop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let's play 'guess the Angel'


	12. Chapter 12

Over the next week, they swapped the daily magic practice for short bursts of activity in the workshop as Shinji went through all of the more advanced spells in Yui’s notebooks, making sure they were all completed in Kaworu. It took time. It was tiring for both of them, and it often took hours for Shinji to find and check even one or two spells, let alone then working out how to fix them, and all the while Kaworu would be jittery in place, wanting to leave.

After a particularly gruelling session of checking reflex and mobility spells (a never-ending trail of them, because Yui had apparently been very specific in how she wanted Kaworu to move), Shinji stepped back from the desk and wiped his forehead, a cloud of dizziness passing over him. “I think that should do it for now…”

Kaworu looked up happily. “You’re finished?”

Shinji stumbled a little as he started to move and Kaworu held out his arms helpfully, as if he could possibly support Shinji’s weight. It was kind of cute.

“For today, I guess,” Shinji said when he’d caught his balance again. “I need to go lie down…” He reached out an arm for Kaworu to climb onto and went back to the library, making sure to shut the door and replace the bookcase properly when he was finished. Honestly, he didn’t even know why he bothered with putting the bookcase back: you’d have to be blind or really short to miss the top of the door poking out above it, and he’d already made a special effort to try and talk (well, more like stutter, but the attempt was there) to the maids and ask them not to go near the library, but he went through the motions of concealing the door anyway.

“I’m going to go for a nap,” Shinji announced to no surprise from any party (the mid-morning nap was an integral part of their day now) and began to wander in the direction of his bedroom when someone knocked on the door.

That strung him into attention and he rushed to put Kaworu down on his bed so he could avoid the usual questioning looks, but when he got back into the main room it turned out he really needn’t have bothered because it was Fuyutsuki who let himself in.

“Good morning, Ikari,” he said with a tired half-smile that Shinji returned with perhaps a little more ‘tired’ and a little less ‘smile’. “Your father wishes to see you.”

With a deep sigh of resignation, Shinji nodded and followed Fuyutsuki out.

His father’s office was as hostile as ever, and his father wasn’t much less so. Compared with the self-satisfied, personal comfort of Yui’s workshop, the towering ceiling and shining marble floor of the office sent shivers down Shinji’s spine. It made him wonder if his father could even get any work done here, or whether it was perhaps built solely to intimidate the people who had to stand at the other end of the echoing hall. If that were the case, it was certainly working.

Gendo didn’t waste any time about it. “How much progress have you made?”

Shinji was just so _tired_. He didn’t want to be in that room, didn’t want to be faced with his father’s irritation (and he knew Gendo was irritated, because how could he not be, forced to deal with something he couldn’t completely control?). With a frown he could feel weighing his face down, he said, “I’ve improved.”

Of course, that wasn’t enough. “Have you found Yui’s work?”

“No.”

“I’ve given you ample time.”

“You have.”

“Do you think this is a game? Do it seriously or don’t do it at all.”

“Would you prefer that? That I didn’t do it?” Shinji managed a smirk, born of spite and fatigue that numbed him to the point where he simply didn’t care. “Only, I was under the impression that you needed me for this.”

“I don’t need useless children.” Gendo’s words cut the smirk off Shinji’s face and he stared, feeling like he’d been slapped. The word echoed in his ears as if it was resonating through the room itself: _useless, useless, useless, useless, useless, you can’t do_ anything _right_.

His face turned to stone, an impassive expression carved into it to keep his lip from trembling. No one said anything, and that was so much _worse_ , because in the silence his own thoughts and memories took over everything. He’d been here so many times, stood here over and over, heard those words over and over but never once had they actually come from his father’s mouth like that. They’d been written into his permanent glare and the faintest sneer in his voice, but they’d never been put into words so concisely before.

_Is that all I am to you?_ Shinji wanted to ask, but (in a desperate effort to protect himself) his throat was clogged up.

_I’ll work harder_ , he wanted to say, but was there any point to that? It wasn’t a question of whether he was going to try or not, it was the results he came up with.

_I lied: I found it_ , he felt at the edge of his lips. Would that be enough? Would he get recognition, then? Would he get a smile, then? Would he get love, then?

And then, like a drop of ink into water, ‘ _I love you_ ’ rang in his mind. He’d promised himself to try and trust that. He’d promised Kaworu he’d try and trust that. He couldn’t back down.

Like that, his jaw stiffened and he looked up, fierce eyes meeting shaded glasses. He nodded quickly, curtly, and said, “I understand.”

The conversation ended with that, Shinji could tell. Whether his father had other, more important, things to do or whether he simply couldn’t stand the idea of talking to his son any longer, Shinji had no idea, but there was finality in the slight tilt to Gendo’s jaw.

At some unheard signal, Fuyutsuki walked the expanse of the room to hold the door open for him, offering a letter as Shinji walked by. He took it with a sharp nod and hurried down the stairs, cringing at the magnificent bang of the door closing again. He felt tired, dizzy, mentally exhausted, but there was the slightest flame of satisfaction inside him. It hadn’t been impossible, for once: he hadn’t caved. He even managed to smile as he held the letter to his chest and walked back to his rooms.

 

After a short explanation of what had happened to the anxious Kaworu, and a subsequent (much-needed) nap followed by lunch, he finally got around to looking at the letter properly. Predictably, it was from Asuka.

“Does anyone else send you letters?” Kaworu asked, apparently meaning nothing by the statement, but Shinji still flushed a little.

“…no, not really. Misato sent me one once, I think, but she likes phones better.”

“And has Miss Asuka got a personal feud against phones?” Kaworu said wryly.

Shinji laughed. “I wouldn’t be surprised, but I think she just thinks it’s too new and annoying. And she likes to get the last word, so writing everything down lets her dominate the conversation, I suppose.”

“That…that makes a surprising amount of sense.”

“You’ll see what I mean.”

The letter was covered in Asuka’s sharp, angry handwriting and there was a lot more than the usual ‘come over’. Shinji straightened it out on the table to read it better.

 

_You’ve probably been far too busy to take any notice of any of this, so I thought someone ought to tell you lest the great Shinji get himself caught up in something he can’t magic himself out of with those supreme powers of his._

 

Shinji grimaced, crumpling the paper a bit. Kaworu laughed lightly and patted his hand in a display of comradery.

 

_There’ve been rumours around that your father’s people are extending their range to the government. These are only rumours and I can’t be bothered with the other sorcerers enough to find about more (so you’d better be grateful I found out this much), but apparently your father’s trying to get government officials under his power and that’s a bad sign if I ever heard one. I don’t know what he’s doing, but the last thing we need is that man in any position of serious power. Make sure you don’t do anything stupid, and don’t play into his hands._

_Asuka_

Kaworu and Shinji looked at each other.

“That might explain his impatience from earlier,” Kaworu said.

“I…I wouldn’t put it past him…” A thought struck Shinji suddenly and he picked up the envelope, checking the seal. “Do you think he read this before giving it to me?”

“If he did, he didn’t care enough to hide it.”

“That’s...that’s true…” Shinji bit his lip and slumped down further into his chair. “But what are we supposed to do, then? He’s going to get seriously angry if I don’t reveal the workshop to him soon.” ‘Angry’ was, of course, nothing more than wishful thinking, a hope that Gendo might actually spare him some emotion.

“Is the situation that bad, though?” Kaworu crossed his legs, settling up against a vase of flowers on the table. “How powerful is your father now? And do you really think his intentions are as bad as Miss Asuka says?”

“I don’t know. He’s never told me anything like that. I’ve asked Misato a few times, but she keeps telling me it’s confidential. Asuka’s told me what the public knows, but this is my father we’re talking about. I don’t think anyone really knows how powerful he is except him.”

“And Fuyutsuki?”

Shinji smiled, relaxing a little. “Probably.”

“So what _does_ the public know?”

“That he owns a highly profitable company that seems to deal in far more than companies generally do. Most people know he used to be involved with sorcerers as well – because of my mother – but it’s common knowledge he doesn’t have any magic. Asuka says that’s basically it: he goes off and talks with powerful people, he negotiates deals that nobody ever finds out about, and he has contacts everywhere.”

“And nobody knows what he wants.”

“Right.” Shinji bit his lower lip, worrying it absent-mindedly as he stared down at the letter.

“Is there any reason it has to be bad?”

Honestly, there wasn’t. Shinji knew that, had always known it, but that was poor comfort when there was a budding feeling of rebellion inside him. He shook his head. “No. Or maybe there is, I don’t know. I just…”

“Do you trust Miss Asuka more than him?”

“…yes…But then I think about it, and this is _Asuka_ : she’d pick a fight with anyone for the sole sake of finding someone to complain about. So I don’t know what to do.”

“Then why do we need to do anything?” Kaworu smiled.

Shinji looked at him wordlessly.

“Your father does seem to always have the upper hand, doesn’t he? But I don’t see any reason why we should bother about that, for now.”

“Do you think we should ignore it?”

“For now, perhaps. He seems set on expanding his plans using Yui’s work, and he doesn’t know we’ve found it. As long as we keep that from him, we’re the ones in control.”

That realisation felt good. With lazy glee, it slunk into Shinji’s mind and he smiled. “So we needn’t worry?”

“I don’t see why we _should_. But eventually he’s going to find out or lose patience, so we really ought to have a back-up plan for that, don’t you think?”

There was something about the planning: the risky, unfamiliar rebellion of it coupled with the sweet repetition of ‘we’ that settled down and held Shinji in a stasis of contentment and excitement. He nodded enthusiastically and they started shooting ideas back and forth to each other, but the idea of ever actually leaving the house was so absurd to a boy shut up in it his whole life and a doll left to sleep for over a decade that they soon lost any pretext of being serious.

“You could add on those weapons to me and we could raze the whole place,” Kaworu offered.

Shinji giggled. “Tempting, but how about we run away and stay with Asuka? We could try and clean up the house, and if anyone ever came after us we’d just have to say they insulted her and she’d send them packing.”

“That sounds horrifying! Wouldn’t it be better to join a travelling circus and show off your _incredible_ puppeteering skills?”

“Or we could become a team of scam artists where I sell you to rich families and you escape with all the money you can carry!”

The suggestions grew further and further from reality, and by the time they’d run out of ideas, all thoughts of danger and caution had rushed from their minds. After all, there was nothing to fear, was there? They had all the time in the world, and they – a sheltered boy who’d never once lived in the world on his own, and a malfunctioning doll – felt in control.

 

With that feeling buoying them on, days passed and, a week later, a morning like any other found them in Yui’s workshop again. Shinji was looking through the notebooks and working out which spells he should check next while Kaworu swung his legs aimlessly on the desk. To Shinji’s great relief, the doll had become a lot less nervous in the workshop (although he still grew anxious at the very idea of Shinji being in there alone). They’d even got used to the blood stains that neither of them had been able to wipe away.

“I think it’ll probably be memory spells today,” Shinji said as he spread out the page more firmly.

“If you’re sure. How far are we from the sleep problem, though?” It was something he asked every time: mildly and never accusingly, but always there.

Used to it, Shinji shrugged. “I can’t see anything on the next few pages, so not for a while, I suppose.”

For the first time, though, Kaworu sighed. It was understandable: he’d fallen asleep for almost the entire afternoon the day before. Shinji smiled sympathetically.

“We could always look elsewhere?” he offered. “I can’t see anything talking about sleep in the whole of this notebook, so maybe there are loose pages lying around?”

Kaworu seemed to perk up at the idea until he realised what ‘looking elsewhere’ meant and shook his head. “No, we shouldn’t. If it’s just around this room, then maybe, but…”

“We’ve been in here a lot, you know. We haven’t found anything even slightly dangerous: don’t you think we could at least try the doors?”

“Why? The notes are right here.” It sounded like a plea, no matter how Kaworu tried to hide it. Shinji hated that it had come to this again, but for some reason he just couldn’t let the matter slide: it was restless inside him.

“But there might be more important things in other rooms. We all know my mother was a brilliant sorcerer, so…wouldn’t it be a waste to not even check?”

Kaworu pursed his lips, his eyes showing that deep, inconsolable sadness he always had in times like these, so familiar that Shinji could tell what he was about to say before he had a chance to. “Shinji…are you still worried you’re not fast enough? We found what we were looking for, so…isn’t that enough?”

Was it enough? It should have been, but instead of relief at the idea, all Shinji could feel was annoyance at an excuse being taken from him. It made it so much more difficult to hide what he actually wanted.

“Shinji,” Kaworu tried again, and something in his voice sounded off this time, “it’s okay if it isn’t. You can tell me. I know it’s selfish to expect my love alone to be all you need, so there’s no shame in admitting you want to please other people too. There’s no shame in admitting you want to please your father.”

“It’s not that!”

“Is it not?”

Shinji didn’t know. He’d done so well, ignoring the idea that perhaps a lifetime spent seeking approval couldn’t be wiped away so easily, and even as the thought came crashing into him, he rejected it.

“It’s not that…” he repeated lamely.

Kaworu nodded like that was enough to understand what even Shinji didn’t. “Do you want to grow stronger?”

He was taken aback by the question. “Y-yes…I mean, doesn’t everyone?”

“Do you want to become more like your mother?”

And now _there_ was a thought that hadn’t occurred to him in a long time. Did he? It was an attractive prospect, filled with admiration and acceptance and power and approval. But that wasn’t everything, he thought. He was sure.

But he couldn’t say what ‘it’ was, either.

“I don’t know.” Now, that was true, but it was hardly respectful of all the effort Kaworu was putting in. He tried again. “There’s something missing in me. I…I don’t know if it can be filled with magic, but it just…I need to become better. I need to improve and have people see me improve and remark on it. I need to prove…” _Something._

Kaworu smiled again, and there was understanding in between the sadness and worry. “If that’s the case…Are you sure?”

The idea was ridiculous. “No. I just…it’s curiosity too, I guess. I want to know what’s in here, I want to know everything I can about her.”

With a resigned nod, Kaworu said, “Then let’s explore.”

“Really?” Shinji honestly hadn’t been expecting him to agree.

“You’re right: there’s been nothing dangerous so far. And I know it’s not good of me to keep you from your mother’s heritage…I’m sorry.”

“No, that wasn’t it at all! You’re always looking out for me: I know…I know that was never your intention…”

“It’s just because I can never stop thinking about you,” Kaworu laughed, and stepped onto Shinji’s outstretched hand to work his way up to his usual perch. “Shall we try?”

Shinji nodded (but not too much, mindful of where Kaworu was standing on his shoulders), and moved to put a shaking hand on the handle of the door nearest to him.

The first door opened easily, with none of the ceremony that such a momentous occasion might have deserved. The room it led to was no more interesting: it looked like an old store cupboard, just an alcove with a door in front, lined with thick shelves holding writing materials and measuring instruments. Just like the main room, there was no dust, not a spider to be seen. It looked like Yui had just stocked it.

Biting back disappointment tinged with relief, Shinji strode to the next door with more purpose, and this one had just as few delights in store. The room was bigger, true, maybe half the size of the main room, but it looked to be as much of a storeroom as the first. There were innumerable jars of different sizes lined up inside glass-fronted cabinets, and pots and pans in varying degrees of wear stacked up by size along the floor. Just like before, nothing seemed even slightly amiss. Even the ingredients in the glass jars still looked fresh, and though Shinji thought it wouldn’t have been out of place for an eyeball suspended in liquid to suddenly turn and look at them, nothing happened. He slammed the door.

Irritation welling up inside him, he pulled the third door open and was about to slam it back when his mind registered what was inside and he almost stopped breathing. On his shoulder, Kaworu suddenly tensed and hissed frantically, “Close the door! Close the door now, please! Shinji!”

Shinji barely even heard him, too busy staring at the exquisite doll on a table inside the room, her delicate eyelids closed and her head of the palest blue hair (so soft-looking, just like Kaworu’s) slumped on her shoulder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, how about that.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's always difficult when all the foreshadowing comes to a peak and you can't work out whether it worked or not. Regardless, writing action is probably not for me...

“Shinji, please! You need to close the door, you need to lock it, seal it, just _please_!” Kaworu was shaking, patting Shinji’s head desperately to get his attention, but the boy stood transfixed at the sight of this new doll in front of him. He could feel something like static on his fingertips, pulling him towards her, and he couldn’t disobey. To a choking, terrified gasp from Kaworu, he moved forwards.

She looked dead: her skin was deathly pale, almost like paper, but he could see little blue criss-crossed veins on her wrists through the white (something Kaworu had never had), and the gentlest hint of pink to her cheeks at the ridge of her cheekbones. Oddly, it almost looked as if she were breathing: her skin had the strangest fuzzy edge to it that could trick your eyes into believing it was moving, and the closer Shinji got to her, the stronger the urge to touch her became. His hands were trembling with the weight of it and, as the pieces felt like they were slipping into place, as everything felt like it had been leading up to this, as Kaworu screamed at him in a hoarse, breaking voice to turn back, he reached out and stroked a finger down the doll’s cheek.

Her eyes opened not in a sudden, rushed movement, but fluttering, like butterfly wings opening to show their true colours. Kaworu went quiet, leaving only a choked gasp in Shinji’s ear, but all Shinji could understand was the doll’s bright, clear eyes. She looked at him without recognition and for a second, everything was still. Then she blinked, and when her eyes opened again they were blood red. The link between the two of them broke.

Shinji stumbled back and finally looked around the room. He hadn’t noticed before, but the floor was swamped in blood stains: they went up the walls and cupboards in crumbling, black drips and trails, and Shinji sucked in a breath.

“What…is this…?” he said in a whisper, backing out of the room on unsteady legs as the doll in front of him began to right herself.

“We need to leave,” Kaworu whispered, almost a sob.

“Why?” he couldn’t take his eyes off her, let alone move at more than a snail’s pace.

“She…” Kaworu hesitated for a second, “she’s the one who killed Yui: she’s dangerous and we need to leave _now_.”

If he’d wanted action, that wasn’t the right thing to say. Shinji stopped in place and tore his eyes from the other doll to look at Kaworu, still tensed on his shoulder. “…what…? You…you said you didn’t…”

Kaworu was getting frantic again now, his jaw trembling as he spoke. “I lied, and I’m sorry, but I’ll explain it all if we just leave! She’s…she’s going to kill us too!”

His words didn’t register properly for a second, but then Shinji managed to run back out of the door and slam it closed.

“What happened?” he asked in a low voice.

“I…” Kaworu was still on edge (no wonder: there was only a thin wooden door more between them and the doll now), but Shinji had stopped dead still. “We need to…”

“ _Please tell me_.”

“She’s…she was the second experiment. I don’t know much about her because I was sealed up for most of it, but I know Yui was working on her that day and then there were screams, and blood, and…I think she’s got the weapons we saw in the book.”

That really wasn’t what he’d needed to hear. “Why didn’t you say something?”

They looked at each other properly for a moment before Kaworu lowered his eyes. “I had hoped she was gone. I hoped we wouldn’t have to deal with her at all. And I…I didn’t want you to think I could be like her.”

Shinji was about to reply when the door in front of them swung open, the doll standing behind it.

“Please, Shinji: we need to go!”

Shinji was transfixed by her eyes again, but he knew in the back of his mind that it wouldn’t matter even if he wasn’t. What was one more door, if she had the weapons they’d seen? And if that was the case, wouldn’t he have to fight her in the end?

The doll stepped towards them, staring them down with an emotionless expression, and all thought of fight was whisked out of Shinji’s mind. He turned and ran.

From behind him, something long and white and far, far faster than him struck out and hit the archway that led to the entrance, breaking through the stone and collapsing it completely in a crash of bricks that sent pieces of stone flying so that Shinji had to jump out of the way to avoid them.

The doll kept walking towards them. Shinji looked up through the clearing dust to see the long white blade-like strip curl up and stick together back into the shape of an arm. He whimpered.

Kaworu jumped from his shoulder to a nearby table and began to run along it as a distraction, and the other doll stopped for a second, considering this change in events, which gave Shinji the time to straighten up against the wall he was cornered into. He had no idea what he was supposed to do. Would fast movement startle her? Was she after one of them in particular? Was she only interested in killing them or was there something else? The myriad possibilities tumbled through his brain, losing any sense they might once have had.

She turned her eyes back to him and he raised his hands in front of him. “Stop! Please, what…what do you want?”

The question stopped her for a second longer, enough time for him – shaking with nerves and terror – to leap over her and run to the other side of the room. She didn’t seem about to answer him, but there was the slightest hint of change in her expression, and that gave him hope.

Kaworu joined him, jumping to the desk nearest him and they shared a worried glance. The other doll was taking her time about it, and there was no way of telling when she would attack next. She just seemed to be watching them, waiting for them to make the first move.

“W-what do we do?” Shinji whispered after he’d calmed himself down enough to form words.

“Can you make a shield out of the wall or something? Even if it’s only good for one hit, that’s…” _one hit less to kill us_. Shinji nodded, putting his hand on the wall and trying to forget that letting himself fall under the haze of magic would leave him completely vulnerable.

With fierce concentration, he managed to keep his eyes open to watch the doll as the wall beside him slowly (far too slowly) spread itself out a few metres in front of him as a barrier. Just before it covered her completely from his sight, Shinji saw her arm begin to elongate.

Kaworu had seen it too and gestured to the door behind them. With the same thought in mind, Shinji had already flung open the door (almost crying with relief when it opened easily) and they rushed inside what proved to be another storeroom just in time to miss the explosion of stone that wrecked everything near where they’d been standing.

With Kaworu’s hand in his, Shinji forced himself to keep calm, and he looked around the room, trying to block out the slow, irregular creaks from the main room as the other doll came to them. There were more cauldrons and ingredients in this room, and he flung himself down to one of the cauldrons and started to fashion a shield out of the thick, blackened metal. Thankfully, the magic came quickly to him, heightened by the faint residue of his mother’s that still lingered through the workshop, and before the doll had even come to the doorway, he was holding two roughly shaped shields. He handed the smaller to Kaworu and they shared a look full of understanding and fear. The shields would be next to useless in a direct attack, no matter how thick they were.

A small creak came from the doorway and the doll was there, watching them serenely as ever. She didn’t even wait this time, immediately raising her arm as it began to melt into its blade form again. Before he knew what he was doing, Shinji grabbed one of the jars from the shelf behind him and threw it at her, hitting her squarely in the chest and knocking her into the ground.

She lay there, motionless without making a sound, and Shinji looked at his hands in disbelief for a second. He then threw another jar for good measure.

The doll seemed too dazed to do anything so he grabbed Kaworu and rushed out of the room, struggling under the weight of the shields, and reached the one door they hadn’t yet tried: the one with blood trails leading up to it. His hands were full so he lowered Kaworu enough for him to try the handle, checking back over his shoulder and cringing as a blade ripped through the door he’d managed to kick back on her, splinters flying everywhere.

The handle clicked, but wouldn’t give. They looked at it in horror. Kaworu turned to him. “Can you change its shape so we can get through?”

“I’d have to put you down for that, though, and she’s-” he trailed off as she rounded the corner. Behind her, the blade trailed limply which would have been something of a good sign – and it was pitiful that a second or two more time to run in a cramped, exitless room was now a ‘good sign’ – if not for the fact that she was raising her other hand slowly, surely, revealing a red gem as her palm melted away.

Shinji thought he was going to cry. From fear, from frustration, from hopelessness, it didn’t matter, as images of the notebook and sketches of lightening-like beams came back to him.

“Put the shield up!” Kaworu said, and he obeyed blindly, just in time to meet the beam.

It was hot. It was so, unbearably hot that he didn’t think he’d be able to take it if Kaworu’s hands weren’t on his, somehow still cool throughout it all. By some miracle, the beam wasn’t strong enough to melt through the metal, but it was getting there, and just holding the battered shield up against its force was a battle on its own. Time slowed to a mantra of ‘ _let this be over, let this be over, let this be over_ ’ and the torture of trying to use his magic to constantly reinforce the shield without getting distracted by the searing pain on his hands, so he almost didn’t notice when the shaking power of the beam disappeared.

Screaming, he hurled the remains of the red-hot shield at the doll and crouched down, cradling his hands and trying to remember to breathe through the pain.

“It’s okay, they’re not badly burnt,” Kaworu said, making soothing sounds, and Shinji tried to take comfort in that, but Kaworu just sounded so far away under the din of his own panting and hisses whenever he moved so much as a finger.

Eventually, after holding them to the cold stones of the floor, the pain subsided enough for him to breathe properly.

“Are you alright?” Kaworu asked gently.

“I…think so…I’m sorry…”

“There’s nothing to be sorry for! You were so brave,” he said, and the smile he gifted Shinji with almost made up for the pain. Then there was a sliding sound, the grate of metal on stone, and they watched nervously as the doll began to get up, pulling the shield off herself with her blade-arm.

She sat up, and though her clothes were badly burnt, she herself showed no signs of damage. Shinji leapt to his feet again, holding Kaworu protectively. It seemed like a stand-off. The doll didn’t make any moves to raise either arm, and Shinji stood, quivering, wondering what on earth there was left for him to do. He’d hoped she would get some damage at least, but now a crushing feeling of hopelessness was flooding through him.

With only the smallest of movements, she began to lift her head to meet his eyes, and he ran again, taking cover behind a cupboard on the other side of the table. She just followed him with her eyes, always watching, and then pulverised the cupboard in one sweeping movement that Shinji hadn’t even seen her prepare. The strangled ends of a scream stuck in his throat, coming out in a breathy whine.

He looked down to meet her eyes, confusion and frustration almost overwhelming him. It was obvious that she could kill him whenever she chose, but she wasn’t doing it: was she hunting them? Was she enjoying it? That would have made sense from any other attacker, but he couldn’t imagine those impassive eyes ever actually feeling anything. She stepped forwards again.

Kaworu rested a hand on his arm, but he couldn’t tell if it was giving or seeking comfort, and it only served to remind him that there were two lives in his hands and he couldn’t protect either of them. The doll took another step and Shinji had had enough: he quickly threw Kaworu to the table at one end of the room with a quick ‘I’m sorry!’ and sprinted to the other end, hoping that would at least confuse her enough for them to…do…something…

Dread pooled in his stomach as he realised he hadn’t worked out anything beyond that. Kaworu shot him a confused look which quickly turned to fear when the doll started moving towards him. Shinji felt like he was being suffocated by regret.

He ran back, but the doll was focussed on Kaworu now. Kaworu, who didn’t have anything to protect himself with, had nowhere to hide, had no choice but to run. He missed the first blow by a sheer luck as he slid across the table just in time, and he missed the second by jumping down, running across the ground towards Shinji. In front of the other doll.

Even Shinji could see what was going to happen, and for some reason the doll wasn’t holding back anymore: no longer occupied with staring contests, she ripped the blade-arm out of the wall and reared it back for another go, and Kaworu was practically in front of her, offering himself up as an easy target.

With only a millisecond to choose, Shinji rejected the option of moving the stone floor up in a barrier and put all his concentration into creating something more solid, something that could actually withstand an attack, forcing this new idea of a wall into existence to protect Kaworu. But something was wrong. His nerves were shattered, and no matter how he tried to concentrate, his magic wasn’t doing what he wanted; he could barely even feel it, smothered underneath fear as it was, and everything was sticking in his mind instead of running smoothly like it should have. A ghost of a wall was there, in front of his eyes, but he couldn’t strengthen it, couldn’t build anything stronger, couldn’t even switch back to shape-changing like he’d first meant to, and then the blade struck, slicing through Kaworu’s neck as if it had been born to do it.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's really short, but I couldn't miss the chance of having the last cliffhanger anyway.

Shinji screamed. He was barely aware of it coming out of him, but he could hear it like some distant, bestial cry of disbelief. Of not _wanting_ to believe. The world melted down to blurred images flying by while he stayed frozen: his face contorted painfully, his knees grazing, bleeding as he fell to the ground, and his eyes fixed unblinkingly on the sight of Kaworu’s body hitting the stones.

A rich, biting smell of metal hit his nose and he realised (somewhere, deep in the back of his mind where he could still think) that at some point he’d been hit by the blade. It wasn’t enough. The thin blossoms of blood that joined to trickle down his arms weren’t enough. He didn’t wish for pain, but…it should have been him: he should be the one in pieces.

He already felt broken, anyway.

His knuckles went white as he clenched his fists into the ground, slowly turning his tear-streaked face to the other doll. He was pleading with her now – ‘ _finish me too’_ – because it was too difficult to live on when guilt was already choking him. The doll looked back at him with her eyes wide and so _red_ it made Shinji want to throw up. The same eyes…He couldn’t look down to check, but he didn’t need to. Those eyes were already burnt into his mind.

“Yu…i…” the doll whispered in a voice so feather-light Shinji could only catch it because his every sense was on fire. She lifted her arm, reaching towards him almost in a comforting gesture, as it joined back into its original shape, the blade being sucked up by ghostly white skin.

Shinji stared at her, completely disbelieving, as she walked to him with gentle clicks and clacks on the floor and looked up to meet his eyes.

“Yui’s blood,” she said simply, looking at the thin trails down Shinji’s arm. She nodded softly to herself.

And that was that. She stayed in place, watching the blood but could just as well have been gazing at it for lack of anything else to look at, and didn’t make any move to continue her attack.

Shinji felt cheated, and a thick sob was ripped from his throat as he curled up on the floor and gave up.

 

He didn’t move for hours. Not wanting to think, he turned in on himself and time slipped by without the measure of clocks and endless ticking marking the seconds into his mind. At some point he fell asleep with tears dried on his face, blood dried onto his arm, but nothing had changed when he woke up. Neither doll had moved.

A few times, he heard his name being called, but it felt so far away he couldn’t summon up even the energy it took to look over at the door and consider answering. And then, with an unwelcome crash of noise into his carefully patched-together silence, the door was slammed open. He didn’t look up. Not when footsteps made their way over to him, not when he was carried out of the room and shouted at with words he didn’t pay attention to. They didn’t try to pry Kaworu from his hands, so he didn’t need to even look at them.

Time gained more meaning when he was eventually left to his bedroom, in the comforting lull of ticking and darkness. Eventually, after one, two, three hours – after hearing people come and go through the library and finally stop coming altogether – he could force himself to look down at the pieces on the bed next to him. It was a clean cut: straight through the neck, with no blood to be spilled or bone to be broken, and Kaworu’s eyes were even closed peacefully.

With a shaking hand, Shinji pushed the head to reach the body, stroking over the seam with his finger. The buzz of magic he’d grown so used to was missing, leaving only smooth, skin-like material. He bit his lip. As if it would make anything better, he struggled to use his magic to meld the pieces back together because that was all he could do, all he was good for. The only atonement there was, and it didn’t even come close to what he needed. When he’d finished, he curled up again, squeezing his eyes closed, and tried to blank his mind once more.

Somehow he managed to fall asleep again, to dreamless, empty sleep that left him heavy-headed and groggy when he woke up. He didn’t open his eyes for a long time.

It came like a breath at first, a murmur across his face that prompted him to open his eyes blearily. His vision was fuzzy still, and for a few seconds all he could see was white. Then, slowly, like an eggshell cracking, red filtered in. Shinji blinked. Someone was calling his name, and it wasn’t anything like the harsh, angry shouts from before, filled with accusation and disgust. It was gentle, soft and sweet, and he blinked quickly, trying to focus on what was in front of him.

With a choked gasp, he breathed, “…Kaworu…?”

Kaworu smiled apologetically, eyes crinkling up with fondness. “I fell asleep,” he said simply, then let out a bubbly laugh as Shinji hugged him tightly enough that he would have had to struggle for air, if he’d ever needed it in the first place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With this, the story I wanted to tell is pretty much done. I'm considering doing an epilogue-like thing, but I'm not really sure what it would add? At any rate, the main story's finished now! Thank you all so much for tagging along, for your kudos and wonderful comments! It's been a lot of fun.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first time I've done a long story where I upload a chapter each time I write it, so that's going to be...interesting...
> 
> Oh, and I keep forgetting to promote myself, but I caved and got a tumblr: http://eristastic.tumblr.com/  
> It's basically just my writing and drawings (when I finally remember to upload them), but come and say hi if you'd like!


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